HR 8to9 More Chronicles of High Reaches
by slytherinsal
Summary: Autumn 2522 to Spring 2524; the ongoing events at High Reaches weyr as touched on in other stories and covered in a bit more detail...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Work enlarging one of the bathing rooms in the lower caverns at High Reaches Weyr caused the plaster to fall off one whole wall.

The tiles beneath caused no little consternation.

T'lana was one of the Weyrwomen who came to view the strange inscription fired into the fine tiles; and read it aloud for the benefit of everyone.

"Being the tale of Kate, rider of green Reeth, second pass. I choose this medium that my tale not be lost in case any need like help in the future. I came to the Weyr by choice, but a boy I knew, Tomas, did not accept this. When visiting a fair with other candidates he kidnapped me and held me naked that I could not leave. I had already viewed the eggs; and it seemed to me that if a dragon waited for me to Impress her then I should be there for her. And so, I thought, it would be logical that my future self would send my – her – dragon back to rescue me. And indeed, a green dragon without a rider arrived; I climbed on and we went _between_ to the hatching grounds where a small green bawled, riderless. And I fell off the dragon to Impress Reeth; and her poor colour told me that I had done the right thing. Now I have closed the loop, for Reeth has been and returned safely, if poor in colour herself, proving that it worked. And so I have permission of Weyrleader R'hard to so record this."

There was deep silence; then a murmur of wonder.

T'lana cleared her throat, and grinned a little shakily at T'bor.

"Proves two – no, three things, Weyrleader." She said.

"Enlighten me."

"High Reaches has had women riding green dragons before; a habit of doing the, er, unusual; and a tradition of weyrleaders with common sense. T'kul excepted."

T'bor gave a rueful smile.

"And I am glad that this R'hard was also proud of his people and let them experiment. Or at least" he quirked an eyebrow "forgave them."

T'lana gurgled with laughter, remembering T'bor's consternation over her own mad ride to fetch little Sagarra to bring R'gar back to consciousness.

"Why was it plastered over?" wondered Pilgra.

T'lana snorted.

"Some idiot weyrleader or weyrwoman NOT in the tradition felt it too radical and had it hidden." She suggested; and Pilgra nodded!

oOoOo

T'bor was actually quite tickled by this tale. As T'lana pointed out, not only did it confirm the previous existence of female green riders, it also went to prove that strange things happened in other times as well as his own. It was somehow strangely comforting to think of that ancient weyrleader R'hart perhaps groaning over the exploits of Kate as he had groaned over T'lan's. That she seemed not to have taken a contraction in the way his own young female riders had chosen to did not bother him; for after all, why should there not be some new customs? And it did not entirely prove that women never contracted their names. For how could one shorten a name like Kate anyway?

This having happened just before the hatching of Segrith's clutch at the end of the fourteenth turn of the present pass was quite a vindication of accepting so many female candidates.

The large number of girls who Impressed Greens at the hatching – ten, if one counted L'exa's sport Green-Gold, though most named her Queenrider – confirmed the lost tradition nicely, as if the few at each previous clutch had not. More than half of the female candidates had Impressed, a similar proportion to that one might expect from male candidates.

Of course, of those who did NOT Impress, the spectacularly bad behaviour of the girl Lasolly was a talking point, how the girl had tried to kill Z'ira in the moment of the younger girl's Impression to little Gold Tiabeth.

The senior Riders all heaved a sigh of relief that the drama was over a Queen egg, once the indignation and furore had died down; and Lasolly had only come to stand for a Queen egg in any case, she was nothing to do with the female candidates for Green eggs!

Such spoiled tantrums could in no way be connected to the traditionally volatile behaviour of Green Riders therefore; and in fact the female Green Riders were, generally speaking, the least volatile of all the Green Riders – even B'lova now she had settled down!

Of course, Y'lara's seabred temper was well known; but she had possessed that before she Impressed, and as one wag put it,

"She's so bad tempered all the time you can't tell when her Green is proddy."

This was a gross libel on Y'lara, who was not bad tempered as such; just extremely intolerant of any she dubbed fools!

oOoOo

Y'lara, who held the distinction of being the first true female Green Rider at High Reaches Weyr in the current pass, was happily settled with M'kel. The next two, A'ira and Z'linda weyred respectively with R'cal and Z'kan. The next hatching had produced no female riders, but there had been a large number of homosexual boys who had balanced things neatly.

The next batch had seen an increase in numbers of females standing, with the increase in awareness that the Weyr accepted them; and five had Impressed; M'rian and Sh'ranis who shared the attentions of Z'nil and L'zayn, T'lana's twin cousins, in a loose love-mating that did not go so far as being weyrmates in the permanent sort of sense High Reaches liked their couples to be in. However, neither the girls nor the boys were ready for long term commitment and there was a stability to it in the acceptance of its lack of ties. The boys particularly were happy to keep the arrangement open and loose, and any one would be happy to wish any one of the others happy if they found a permanent partner.

M'rian, the young widow, secretly admired Bronze Rider V'gion, who was like her seabred. She did not however want to leave sensitive, birthmarked Sh'ranis alone even if the young Bronze Rider ever noticed her! Moreover, M'rian was, deep down, afraid to commit to a man ever again; the pain of widowhood once was enough.

Of the others from that clutch, T'alla had requested sequestration on grounds of her youth, and had been duly kept from the hopeful riders; when Seelith had risen, T'lana made sure the interested blues belonged to riders who already had lovers – by dint of finding errands out of the weyr for any others when she felt Seelith's growing nubility - and shoo'd them all into one cavern, with T'alla sequestered in Y'lara's weyr out of reach.

It worked out very well; as it usually did when sequestering little boys in the same way.

L'nna on the other hand was happy to wake up with the Rider whose dragon Polleth had chosen; and being weyrbred made nothing of it. R'iana, a bit of a rebel, had gone with Greeth's choice first time and subsequently declared that if the young dragon ever picked Breeneth again she, R'iana, would go _between._

"T'chal's quite a good lover though" B'lova remarked.

"oh in BED he's all right" said R'iana "I just can't stand his voice, his manner, his old maidish auntie-like fussiness… I just don't like him as a person."

"Girl's got good taste" said Y'lara "I woke up with him once when M'kel was remiss enough to be off form and wasn't concentrating enough on encouraging Vorth; and I soon had enough of T'chal! Well, it's easy enough to inhibit Greeth my dear; get yourself a lover in the meantime and she'll get used to your choice. So long as he concentrates."

A'ira hid a smile; it was going to take M'kel a long time to be allowed to live THAT down.

Accordingly R'iana established herself with K'len, whose Brown Sharath could outfly Breeneth any day. As brother to her clutchmate L'nna it seemed a good and amicable arrangement; and if they bickered it was mostly friendly. It did not stop K'len joining other mating flights; but that was understood in the arrangement.

oOoOo

With the hatching of Segrith's clutch in the Autumn of the Fourteenth Turn of the Pass, the group of girls of the previous Turn's clutch were anticipating their own young dragons rising for the first time.

Neither T'arla nor J'nara had any real qualm – nervous excitement perhaps but no qualms – because they had established weyrmates and both were Bronze Riders.

Although Bronze dragons were sometimes outflown in Green mating flights because of the superior manoeuvrability of smaller males it was not common if the Bronzes involved were taking matters seriously.

L'gal and M'gol and consequently Solpeth and Luruth would be taking things very seriously!

B'lova felt a bit left out.

Her behaviour when she had first come to the Weyr had been frankly promiscuous; but since discovering that there was more to life than sexual conquest she had been virtually celibate.

Breeneth was a possibility to fly Linith; T'chall and B'lova had been lovers, and it had not been his conversation she had been interested in at the time.

But he WAS inclined to lecture; and a mating flight was, B'lova thought, more serious than being occasional lovers.

B'lova was a logicator; and might ask any unattached logicator to be her lover with a reasonable expectation of agreement. She was also learning to be a lot more perceptive than of old; and sent her firelizard Trel with a message to the tonguetied Blue Rider V'ral to ask if he would come to the Weyr.

oOoOo

V'ral had been considering asking to transfer from his duty at Tillek Hold in any case.

He wanted to be a part of a fighting wing; and he wanted to be near Veralinne, the baby girl he had effectively adopted.

Receipt of this letter decided him; and he returned to request a transfer back to the Weyr as well as to find out what Weyrwoman B'lova wanted. He assumed it would be logicator business but he rather looked forward to seeing the attractive Green Rider again too.

oOo

B'lova smiled at V'ral; which in his estimation was a good start, even if it did make him blush. Which it did. Girls made him nervous and even more tonguetied than usual, especially those he found attractive.

"Linith's almost grown, V'ral" said B'lova, deciding not to beat about the bush. "I'm looking for someone nice to be with. I like you and I respect you. Could you fancy Sledeth flying her?"

V'ral changed colour several times.

It occurred to him that she might be having a joke at his expense; it would not be the first time a girl had led him on and then laughed at him; though before it had been because he had been useful as a means of aborting an unwanted foetus from some other lover. B'lova could get a trip _Between_ any time she wanted from her own dragon!

"I – kind of thing, don't play games, know what I mean?" he was clenching and unclenching his fists.

"I wasn't playing games, V'ral" said B'lova. "You're one of the gentlest men in the Weyr, and you love that fosterling of yours as if she was your own; and you're no fool either. I'd like to get to the point that I can manage a conversation with you as well as sex; but I guess it's going to take a while for you to relax enough to manage that. It's all right; I can talk enough for three, never mind for two! Unless that puts you off?"

V'ral shook his head hastily.

"You mean…. I mean, really, kind of thing?" he asked, eyes wide.

"Y'know what, V'ral?" she said, winking at him "Sometimes you just talk too much!"

He was chuckling as she kissed him; for there was nothing wrong with V'ral's intellect or his sense of humour!

oOoOo

V'ral, unsurprisingly, was still a virgin; but B'lova was amply experienced for both and was able to teach him without him realising and feeling in any way put down by her greater knowledge.

He was enthusiastic and eager; and B'lova rather enjoyed the seduction. Once Sledeth had been involved he would find it easier to find the abandon that as yet eluded him; and B'lova wondered absently what silly tunnel snake had led him on and hurt him so badly that his responses should be so surprised in their gratification! She contemplated wringing such a girl's neck if she ever found out who it was, not realising that she was several turns too late for that, since one of the said girl's other lovers had already done so, for that had been the first time T'lana had used logicating to uncover the truth.

V'ral had a nice body.

Most dragonriders did, of course; but V'ral had done quite a lot of sailing at Tillek Hold and had different muscle masses to those B'lova was used to. He also had a uniform tan across his body that extended down his chest, in contrast to most High Reaches Riders whose bodies lurked for a lot of the Turn in furs, muscular enough and often tanned on face and arms from the high thin air concentrating the sunlight; but tanning was a seasonal and not common occupation. It gave B'lova something to comment on favourably.

V'ral grinned.

"Weatherbeaten; not tan. Like sailing. No-one bothers you to talk too much, know what I mean? Waves always different – shapes, colours, always changing."

"For someone with a reputation as rather tonguetied you've just painted a beautiful word picture" said B'lova. "You must take me sailing; I expect I'll be rather unhandy but I'd like to share the experience with you."

V'ral flushed.

"You're kind, B'lova" he said.

"No I'm not, don't be idiotic" said B'lova, flushing red herself. "You're a fun lover. And nice; and I think you're probably rather clever if anyone takes the time to find out."

"T'lana understands what I say, kind of thing; thought she was the only one. I-I can't, like, organise kind of thing between thinking and speaking."

B'lova nodded and kissed his nose.

"And the more that people hurry you, the more flustered you get and the more muddled your words are. So they sigh in impatience because they're too hasty" she said. "I'll try not to hurry you V'ral, but I'm an impetuous piece I'm afraid!"

He smiled at her.

"You're lovely!" he said.

He managed to lead their next period of loving; and B'lova was glad.

He learned very fast.

"I can't foster Veralinne" B'lova said when they got to speak next "I really don't do babies."

He grinned.

"I thought, kind of thing, I didn't do women, know what I mean?"

She chuckled.

"However much you tease, I'm still of the same mind! Besides she's happy between Jaklinne and Lillis. Not that Lillis is any more than a child" she looked suddenly thoughtful "V'ral if we sort of fostered Lillis and she was like a big sister to Veralinne would that keep it in the family so to speak?"

He blinked.

"That, kind of thing, went by very fast" he said "Are you, like, kind of thing, suggesting we kind of weyr together sort of all the time?"

B'lova considered that.

"I'd not object to giving it a go" she said honestly "I'm bossy, V'ral, and not always good tempered. I'm vindictive at times and rather impetuous."

He grinned.

"You mean, kind of thing, a typical weyrwoman?" he teased.

B'lova had to laugh.

"I suppose so" she said ruefully.

"Lillis" he said "Poor little girl; talked to her. Nice for her to have family, kind of thing; not interested in Impressing."

Lillis had been forced by circumstances into becoming a ridiculously young loving wench before the Weyr had taken her on whilst searching for a wetnurse for Veralinne, her own baby having been murdered by a client. This was the first time in her life she had known any kind of kindness and stability.

B'lova nodded.

"I know she's not interested in Impressing; but as T'lana's so fond of pointing out, especially when stuck up candidates disrespect the lower cavern people, it takes between three and five support staff to every one fighting pair; not everyone has it in them to Impress. But having family will give her more confidence generally I should think and she'll be keen to give Veralinne the chance to grow up to be brave like her father."

"We don't know who….OH!" V'ral flushed "But….."

"But nothing. SLEDETH knows that her proper father now is the bravest and best" said B'lova.

There was no more conversation for a long while.

oOoOo

There was, naturally, gossip about B'lova's choice of weyrmate; some of it rather adverse.

"Honestly, B'lova, you could have the pick of any Blue or Brown Rider of those who are unattached" said Kelia, L'nna's younger sister "Why V'ral? There's something WRONG with him!"

"Oh definitely" said B'lova, relaying the conversation to Sledeth to pass to V'ral, Sledeth being used to being used by T'lana when she was in a hurry to translate V'ral's thoughts; and the Blue dragon was happy to extend the courtesy to someone who made his partner feel so good.

"You actually acknowledge it then?" Kelia was surprised "That there's something wrong with him?"

"Yes. He talks too much" said B'lova; and walked off, leaving that busy little madam with her mouth open!

oOoOo

It was probably B'lova's rediscovery of sexual enjoyment that prompted Linith to be the first Green of that clutch to rise, dark mutterings on the part of those who did not know her well despite; for they made comments of 'like Rider like dragon' and dragged up B'lova's earlier concupiscence.

Several other female Green Riders were heard to put such people right, including the normally gentle J'nara who went so far as to snap at one older Rider!

"Oh your Green's proddy too is she?" he sneered.

J'nara blinked.

"Oh, that would explain a lot" she said "I'm sorry, Brown Rider, I'm usually tolerant of senile old fools, do forgive my temper!"

J'nara was well patted on the back by her friends for managing so bitchy a put-down!

oOoOo

B'lova was told of J'nara's comment later; and was only sorry to have missed it.

In some respects, anyway.

Sledeth had duly caught Linith, and she and V'ral had had a very good time; and in dragonlust the things he murmured did not include a single 'kind of thing'.

B'lova had every expectation that when he was thoroughly relaxed with her they would manage to have perfectly normal conversations!

As predicted by the Brown Rider J'nara's Rillith rose quite quickly; followed by T'arla's Frith. And as J'nara experienced the joy of dragonlust with her M'gol, so T'arla realised once more how lucky she was in L'gal!

The Weyr had never experienced SINGING mating dragons before.

oOoOo

Of course there was one Rider who had to taunt V'ral.

"Hey, V'ral! How was your pillow talk?" he called.

V'ral fought a flush; but the confidence that B'lova was starting to give him gave him the quick retort he had never managed before.

"Well, kind of thing, m'mother taught me it's rude to talk with your mouth full know what I mean!"

B'lova almost burst with pride!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 **

It was around this time that Geriana climbing to get a good position to watch the Greens' mating flight of her friends and to draw them got too interested in sketching and not sufficiently interested in her own security; and suffered a nasty fall.

There was nothing broken, but a very nasty gash in her left arm left her weyr-bound for a while until it should be healed.

Geriana took it philosophically enough; it could have been worse. And she had her boys to love her, and several sketches to work up into colour for the visualisation library that she could be getting on with; as well as adding to the training of both Carlinna and Sessel the youthful sea bred child who liked to paint the sea.

Being used to frequent flits _Between_, Geriana had never bothered much with contraceptive herbs; but she was no innocent, even if she did curse herself for an idiot when her monthly bleeding was late.

She assembled her boys.

"One of you's probably a father" she said bluntly. "Does it bother you?"

S'net and S'negen stared: then grinned.

"We act as one – does it bother you who it might be?" asked S'net.

"Not one whit" said Geriana. "B'kas, how are you about it?"

"Well I can't have their babies" said B'kas "but if you will, I'd love to be an extra mother to him or her."

"Whether you raise baby yourself or foster, we stand by you" said S'negen.

Geriana grinned.

She loved her boys so much!

"I thought we might call a boy Kassen" she said "for all of you; or a girl Gesenka for all of us."

"They sound really nice" said S'negen. "It's hard to fit part of you into a boy without sounding like he's Benden bred: and sweet of you to have all of us in his name." He gave her a fond look; it would be easy for B'kas to feel left out of this! But by putting his name into a potential baby, it drew him in too, and S'negen loved Geriana the more for her tender love for gentle B'kas!

oOoOo

Winter was setting in, in earnest, to the horror of Brown Rider K'shon, used to the warmth of Ista! He was only too happy to take a trip to Ista Island with H'llon when the Weyrwoodcrafter was busy trying to find out the identity of an amnesiac man. H'llon had been recruiting a Holdless woman, Petrilla, to help find those who wanted to be helped, either to maintain their Holdless yet non criminal status, or those who wished a way out of being Holdless. The logicators had been thinking mainly of children, born of those made Holdless; but they were prepared to be flexible!

K'shon came back complaining that the contrast made the cold seem colder; and wheedled M'ielle to consider joining him in his furs to warm him up.

M'ielle laughed.

"You're a bad man, K'shon, sure you are" she said in her lilting Ruathan brogue "Well by the time it's really cold, I'm thinking that Sophoreth will be big enough t'let me so she will."

"It gets colder?" he groaned "Pretty Weyrwoman, take pity – if it gets any colder, anything I possess for your entertainment will either have dropped off or retreated inside!"

"Fool" said M'ielle fondly "I'll knit it a scarf."

Which she proceeded to do in Ista orange; and K'shon roared with laughter and promised to wear it under his woollen underwear for the next Threadfall; but only if she'd join him in his weyr afterwards to check that he had done so.

K'shon won.

M'ielle was not unhappy to become his weyrmate; she was becoming more and more attached to the cheerful Istan!

oOoOo

M'ielle was not the only new Rider to be settling down.

L'beth bowed to the inevitable when she heard Tefanny referring to A'vis and G'let as 'my two new fathers'; and told them on returning from the Nabol Winter Gather where Tefanny had been boasting about her two fathers that they had better see about sorting out a triple weyr for living quarters.

It need not be near the ground; although Brith would be unable to carry passengers for a good while yet, both Bajith and Nembeth were quite obliging to both L'beth and Tefanny.

L'exa too asked J'red,

"You reckon Arth will manage a smallish Queen?"

J'red beamed all over his face, jerked her into his arms, and kissed her thoroughly by way of answer.

"So long as you think I can manage a tall and statuesque Queenrider" he said.

"Is – is that part of dragons and dragonlust?" L'exa was flustered "I – I feel so GOOD!"

J'red cupped her face.

"That's nothing to do with dragons, lovely L'exa. That's to do with being valued" he said seriously.

"I rather think I'd like you to value me some more" said L'exa, gravely.

J'red was happy to oblige!

oOoOo

H'llon and Voll were maintaining contact all the time with Petrilla, including providing her with a firelizard egg; and received word of others who needed their aid.

For a pair of fisherman brothers, the oldest of whom had been turned out of his hold after he broke his back, they roped in R'cal to help them aid the proud pair; who could help the weyr in return. It just had to be put in the right way. H'llon made a wheeled chair for Peder, the older, that could too be lashed into a boat and manoeuvred by rope and pulley to permit him to sail independently.

oOo

R'cal took Peder and Jen to the little island weyr and explained matters.

"We're thinking about setting up a Weyr here predominantly for ageing Riders who need warmer weather for aching bones; but you two seem sensible lads, so I'll go further for I don't think you're the types to panic."

"If we were, we'd not have survived" said Peder.

"Fair comment" nodded R'cal "We have several people who believe it is possible the Long Interval may be followed by a Long Pass; and knowing that such an event will leave many dragonriders exhausted and demoralised we thought a spare weyr that only had this island to cover for its local sphere of influence so that we could build a team of relief Riders who could take the duties from any weyr exhausted or with many injuries to give them time to recover."

"Grim; but your thinking makes sense" said Jen "If that's not an impertinence Blue Rider" he added hastily as Peder glared at him. He could not resist adding, "But how do we fit in?"

R'cal grinned boyishly.

"It's a bit hush-hush and we haven't yet told F'lar" he sad "We want to see how self sufficient we could be if we were a weyr-hold type arrangement, closer than usual weyr and hold relationships. We need a thorough survey of the caves near the sea and soundings too of what looks to my untrained eye to be a natural harbour. We've seabred Riders; but we can't always spare them long enough to check things out properly. If you're willing to, we'd leave you, wood for boats and some others to help you to see how viable a seahold is here. You'd be fully provisioned and visited regularly. Would you be prepared to do that?"

"I'll say" said Peder quickly, enthusiasm writ large on his face.

"Well…" said Jen

"Will you spend some time with us in the Weyr looking at what notes we have so far and thinking about it?" asked R'cal "And our Healer will look at your back too, Peder I suspect it won't heal now for not being immobilised immediately, which at sea would be almost impossible: but we do have a lad – he's gone back to the Harper Hall to complete his training, but he's one of ours – who broke his back and it IS healing. He's got movement in his legs and he can crap to his own command."

"Fancy you dragonriders thinking of a thing like that!" said Jen "You don't think of weyrfolk crapping!"

Peder leaned over to poke his younger brother; but R'cal just laughed.

"We'd be pretty unwell if we didn't, lad! People are the same whatever job they do; we just do a more dangerous job than most – which is why we recruit a lot of seabred riders, because sailors know and understand danger as few landsmen can!"

"This chair is amazing" said Peder "Is it something dragonfolk use because you have a lot of injury?"

"It is now" said R'cal "It was devised for a fosterling of one of our Queenriders who was crippled by illness. Our Weyrwoodcrafter – who's as near to being my own fosterling as makes no odds, though he was effectively a man already when I took him under my wing – improved upon it. He's inventive is H'llon" said R'cal proudly.

"It's an excellent thing" said Peder "I feel so much more independent, I really think I can sail in most weather with this, with ropes and karabiners rigged for me."

"You take it careful" warned his brother "All right, Blue Rider; we'll visit the weyr with you and prepare to come back here. What do we earn if we carve out a Hold here for you?"

"The right to Hold it, obviously!" said R'cal.

"Aren't you going to offer that to more experienced men?" asked Peder.

"Lad, I'd rather see a brave, adaptable man Holding who's not constrained by preconceived ideas; and frankly, who dares should be the winner" said R'cal.

"Aren't there going to be problems Holding somewhere on Southern?" asked Jen shrewdly.

R'cal laughed.

"The beauty of this is that it isn't on Southern! You can see the Southern continent on a clear day, but this isn't part of it. Actually technically, this is part of the Eastern Isles, which has its own irony; though those who are exiled are dropped off far, far to the North of here. This hasn't been claimed by anyone but High Reaches Weyr. And that's the way we mean to keep it – us, and people who aren't stuffy old fools! And you never heard that opinion from me either" he added hastily.

Peder grinned.

"No, Blue Rider" he said.

oOoOo

Petrilla also sent a couple of children to the Childhold at the Weyr, Varney aged seven; and three-turn-old Risa his sister. As the Childhold was not really fully operational as yet, and as Varney showed no fear of dragons at all, indeed the reverse, they were fostered in a regular fashion with Assela, who cared for M'kel's children and also saw to most of the physical needs of Amira, M'rian's small daughter. They were all around the same sort of age, so it worked out nicely. Varney soon made friends with Abreall, Siriwenne and Tefanny!

oOoOo

Meanwhile the Weyr had heard of two happy events; Elissa, now Journeyman Woodcrafter, had married Masterturner Gerney; and Lady Rillys of Rivenhill Hold gave birth to a second daughter, Corrys, the child of her new husband, the dragonless man Corbin.

Back in the Weyr, Y'lara produced a son for M'kel who came bawling into the world to the accompaniment of some of Y'lara's choicer seabred oaths. Y'lara named him Miklar and declared that he was as awkward as his father, arriving several hours predawn as M'kel was getting ready to leave for Threadfall.

"Just like a man" opined Y'lara.

M'kel decided not to comment; from what he had seen of her labour he preferred to fight Thread whatever the hour of day or night than to go through the business of birthing. He was GLAD to be a man!

oOoOo

Elissa had also sent a candidate for the next clutch, a girl called Ishelle, whose main motive was avoiding marriage; and as Daenilth rose the day after Miklar was born, she would not have TOO long to wait. T'arla used it as an excuse to collect her young cousin Meeri from an abusive father on the pretext of Search, and really to train the girl in music. There was a vacancy, after all, in the Harperweyr, for Horgey had gone to the Harper Hall to confirm as Journeyman!

oOoOo

From the point of view of the Weyr, the next most exciting thing was T'lana's birthing; since the number of babies and the gender thereof were a matter of speculation for those dragonmen – which was most of them – who were inclined to bet on almost anything.

K'len – predictably – had a book on how many babies she was carrying and what sex they were; he declared that at least it was one thing D're could not see through the shells!

D're, laughing, put marks on there being three babies or more and at least one of each.

He was the most astonished person in the weyr to be the biggest winner.

T'lana produced two daughters and a son with a minimum of fuss late in the afternoon two weeks before they were due.

Calla pronounced the babies as fit and healthy as many a single baby, albeit rather on the compact size; and also declared that T'lana was known for her compact but healthy babies.

R'gar and T'lana announced that the babies were to be named Garlan, Talarra and Sarelana. Sarelana was named after T'lana's foster father ; and when he was told, he sent message about how touched he was!

It was a sevenday for babies.

Alessa's daughter by T'rin arrived just five day later. They called her Tylessa and both parents were delighted!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The Weyr Artists, which was to say Geriana, Carlinna and B'kas, put their heads together with Geri's and B'kas' weyrmates S'net and S'negen over a matter that had been bothering Geri and that she summoned them to discuss.

They did not include Sessel in the discussion on grounds that he was too young.

"I've been thinking about young Boral" said Geriana "You know – Niran's apprentice."

"She catches the pregnant fix-it thing from T'lana" joked S'negen. They all recalled the downtrodden little boy from the investigation into the murder of a master artist.

Geri threw a brush good naturedly at her lover for his teasing.

"We know that Niran gets rid of apprentices if they look like they're going to be better than him" she reminded them; Niran was notorious for his decorative rather than competent style "And we know he beats on the kid. Right?"

"So Kellahan said; we've no reason to doubt his word" said B'kas.

"So why don't you boys collect Boral on pretext of Search and he can train here?" said Geri "Like T'arla's cousin Meeri at the Harperweyr?"

"I like" said S'net.

"He's under age" S'negen made mild protest.

Geri cast up her eyes.

"Get him alone and ask him is he'd like a less violent apprenticeship; and if he says yes, tell him to LIE about his age" she said patiently.

oOoOo

The artists, like all the skilled at crafts in the Weyr, made items for Lord Bargen's Turnover Gather; and this time the Weyr also put together a curling team.

It was partly in response to a teasing comment by Kirissa, undercook at Northfork Hold and captain of their curling team, that even if the Weyr entered, it would pose no threat since M'gol was getting fat on domesticity.

M'gol had laughed at such friendly teasing and asked,

"Was that a challenge Kirissa?"

"Why not?" said Kirissa.

The curling team was born.

T'lana was heard to pass comment that if people were so keen to use brooms there were always dragonets to muck out; which comment met with injured looks and little enthusiasm.

Nobody expected to win against Northfork's seasoned team; but it would be fun to play. And the dragonmen place their judicious bets that they would make the semi-finals at least!

It was an exciting series of matches; and the Weyr team counted themselves unfortunate to be drawn against Northfork in the semi-finals.

"Anyone else and we might just have made it though" said M'gol, after Kirissa's final stone was so precise that it easily took down the Weyr team. "Well played, Northfork!" he added.

Tragen's team was gracious in victory; especially as Northfork had something of a special relationship with High Reaches Weyrfolk. And the Weyr wagermasters still cleaned up having put an accumulator on Northfork to win!

The artists too had their own dramas at the Gather with some less than pleasant encounters and a new apprentice gained from it; it was one of the most eventful Gathers ever in the opinion of more than one of the High Reaches Weyrfolk!

oOoOo

After Turnover H'llon was asked to visit Northfork Hold; where he met a cousin of his he had last seen when she was eight turns old and he was just ten.

Josis' father had died whilst working at Lambo's Field Hold; and she had been forced to drudge for the spoiled daughter of Holder Vorn, Vorinia; Vorn had torn up Josis' apprentice papers and ripped off her knots and a little girl of some thirteen turns had been able to do little about it. Vorinia had improved greatly after her experiences in the Weyr and had urged Josis to make plaint now that the girls were at Northfork fostering.

H'llon was, unsurprisingly, furious; and went with Master Bendarek, to demand reparation through Lord Bargen.

Bargen was hardly less furious; and H'llon reflected again how clever the Lord Holder was in manoeuvring Holder Vorn into attacking him in a fit of uncontrollable temper. Which display gave the Lord Holder the opening to declare Vorn insane and have him confined in the Healer Hall.

oOoOo

The crafters of the Weyr were all busy. The Minercrafters – and a few other minecraft journeymen T'lana had borrowed from Masterminer Nicat – were busy excavating the caverns for the Childhold and building 'in and out' as T'lana put it a place for the Holdless to over-winter some mile or so down the mountain, near to the main road that led to the Weyr. Both these building projects required the provisions of running water and necessaries, the outfall to be piped to big tanks; and smithcrafters were needed for the lengths and lengths of pipes to be installed. H'llon and various smith-trained Riders and weyrsmiths were experimenting with burning the gases given off by rotting human waste.

Several riders had to be treated by Calla for burns; H'llon looked quite strange for some days until his eyebrows grew back.

They decided that a valve was required to allow the passage of the gas one way only; and then they had more or less cracked the problem.

It provided but poor light; H'llon believed that the 'gas mantles' spoken of in his logicating manual referred to some means of converting the gas to light that they had insufficient data to duplicate, that was so common to the ancients that it required no explanation. Heat and cooking were a different matter however; a flame could be lit at each of a number of holes in a tube, like a flutw and it gave out heat and could too be cooked over. Naturally it was named the Flute Stove. The use of a mesh over it for safety was a smithcraft suggestion.

This meant that heat could be taken anywhere that there was human waste, and the heat directly where it was needed, no waste or loss of heat in ducting it from any central fire. And as for light, well there were always glows.

To aid with the building, the grim-faced carter, Finvor Utul of Ruathan name but High Reaches accent, carted stone back and forth from the Weyr where the caverns were being cut away to add to the building for the Holdless facility that grew out from the mountainside; and too for the facing of various waste pits. Finvor had brought his small son Coll to the Weyr to die somewhere comfortable; the healers of Fort Healercraft Hall could give him no hope, and Finvor was glad to pay his way for the care his boy was given. His pithy and practical advice was relished by the Weyrfolk.

"Reckon it must be something about carters!" H'llon laughed, clapping the man on the back when he devised a corduroy road to slide the biggest rocks down. "Lord Deckter's a good and practical man too – it's why we have that second tank. He says that the stuff we pump out must be rotted a full turn before it's safe for handling to put on crops."

Finvor shrugged.

"I dunno about that, Bronze Rider; but he be a Lord Holder now, so reckon he know what he'm talking about. Where there's shit there's marks, they say."

"For any farmer, to improve his crops, that's First Egg's own truth!" nodded H'llon.

oOoOo

H'llon had to go out of the Weyr without any eyebrows to assist Petrilla catch a would-be murderess; a most unpleasant business. He was glad, he declared, to get back to his latrines. They were cleaner than the murkier depths of the human psyche in his opinion!

Dealing with the woman who had fled her husband taking her six children to beg Petrilla's aid was harder. She expected Petrilla to find a solution but had hysterics at the idea of the Weyr. Petrilla could not take on a freeloader and her offspring; and asked for two riders of large dragons. When H'llon and Z'kan arrived they found the woman and her eldest daughter drugged with fellis, being Petrilla's best idea of how to shift the problem where at least the children would be safe.

H'llon and Z'kan decided that the better part of valour was to avoid the issue and passed the whole to T'lana.

When the Lady Dionne awoke, it was to see the cheerful face of the little redhead.

"It was a bit naughty of Petrilla not to warn you she was going to sedate you" said T'lana "I expect she was concerned that you'd be worried about travelling dragonback. Some people are nervous; dragons are a little on the large side I suppose."

Dionne had hysterics.

"Dear me, that's a bit silly and childish isn't it?" said T'lana calmly "Think what a bad example to your children! After all, you and they have taken no harm; and it's not as if there's a dragon in here, is it? You don't HAVE to go and look at them you know; why don't you have this firelizard egg? They're like tiny dragons, sweet and not at all intimidating."

T'lana hoped that Impressing a firelizard might help reconcile Dionne to their bigger cousins. She went on as Dionne murmured almost automatic thanks,

"Your daughter Begionne has made friends with some of my fosterlings; she's a bit boisterous for you, perhaps, as you are feeling rather delicate right now; I can foster her quite happily if you've a mind. Settled? Good!" she smiled and patted Dionne's hand leaving the Lady quite overcome and speechless from so overwhelming a barrage of speech.

Which had been the whole idea.

T'lana made sure to introduce Dionne to Shuba and Joana. Having had a lesbian affaire herself she would not find them shocking; and they were both nervous of dragons.

Once they understood that T'lana was not suggesting a threesome, but only asking their help with a woman perhaps confused about her sexuality and afraid of dragons, the girls were happy to help.

Joana was plainly terrified by dragons; but pointed out stoically that you put up with any fear for someone you truly loved.

Dionne was shamed at least into staying silent; not willing to admit that she had not willingly braved dragons for the sake of her children.

Shuba and Joana were no fools.

They soon decided that she was a silly creature; but assiduously looked after her because T'lana had asked the to. And T'lana was, in their opinion, the most wonderful woman on Pern!

oOoOo

Spring burst upon the High Reaches; and Threadfall would no longer fall as blackdust crackdust until the next winter set in. Rain drowned Thread occasionally; but it was back to flying to cover every Fall.

The Hatching of Daenilth's clutch made four more Harper-Riders; the boys had joined the Harperweyr after becoming candidates, two there for the music with dragons as an added bonus, and one smithcraft trained lad who embraced the Harper idea of learning everything! The fourth was K'iara, L'rilly's cousin and weyrmate of H'gey, and she was one of eleven females who had Impressed.

And there were a few ruffled feathers to sooth there too; M'yana had NOT been intended to stand; her parents had not felt her old enough. Green Olveth had other ideas however; Mayana having sneaked a candidate's tunic for the purpose.

T'rin handles the matter, making much of the fact to her various outraged relatives of the lower caverns that at least it had prevented another Impression in the tier, which always made Weyrleaders a trifle grouchy for some reason: T'rin talked very fast as only a Harper might.

When he also winked and murmured about the strictness of R'gar's and T'lana's discipline with weyrlings her parents relaxed a little; their daughter WAS rather strong willed, they ventured timidly, and quarrelsome.

"Not more than once with R'gar" said T'rin with conviction.

oOoOo

Despite Thread, the Riders still found time to take goods to the big Gathers, most finding some excuse to visit Nabol's Spring Gather to lay marks on Tragen's runnerbeasts and buggies that were racing there. The girls Jerissa and Varalie who had needed rescuing from being out during Threadfall were there with the rest of the youngsters they fostered with in a small Hold; and predictably caused a stir when Jerissa took exception to a child selling weesweets in cages; and Varalie actually argued with her friend over the child's skinniness! They made up and too the little girl, Ibella, to T'rin, who was doing his stint of duty on the Weyr craftstall. The upshot was that Ibella and her three brothers were to be taken to the weyr, and the theft of their goods when they were forced out of the cot after the deaths of their parents was to be addressed.

H'llon was permitted to man a stall this time, providing he promised faithfully not to rearrange it; and he was delighted to find out that Varalie's friend Lavanni, who suffered from the same birth defect to her back as little Grighri, had found to useful the wheeled chair H'llon had made that she was able to visit the Gather!

It may be said that the riders did very well on Kaili, racing Unicorn; and most of those who had won donated a lot of winnings to the Childhold. Heavily pregnant as Kaili was, the odds had been heavily against her.

"A Mulgan can race blindfold, pregnant, one legged and constipated" declared D're, contemptuously.

Varalie also won heavily on Kaili: and taking advice from M'gol also won on other teams fielded by Tragen.

She promptly donated half HER winnings to the Childhold too, though she had never seen so much money herself in all her life before; and J'nara, on the stall at the time, gave the girl a hug and a kiss!

oOoOo

As if enough had not been heard of Varalie, H'gey reported images from her firelizard that she sent to him of a sick Brown Rider whilst she and her fellow fosterlings must be on the road home.

It was T'rin who went to investigate; T'thar was a youthful Oldtimer who had come forward exactly fifteen turns too many.

High Reaches shrugged and enrolled him on their strength.

A spare Brown Rider never came amiss and he seemed young enough to be adaptable.

When Rillith rose the next day, J'nara decided to ask T'lana if she might have Weyr duties; and let nature take its course in the hopes she had conceived with M'gol.

oOoOo

Better weather brought several aunties from the High Reaches Port's Holdless caverns, collected predominantly by J'red. One of them had been a drudge in the nursery of his weyrmate L'exa: Marilka was happy to foster any baby they had, aided by the buxom itinerant farm girl Esmelda.

Of the knitting aunties, as the others were dubbed, one was the widow of a weavercrafter killed by Fax; and a direct connection of Lord Warder Lytol.

The Weyr cried shame that a former Dragonman's kinswoman should live – or rather, barely exist – like that; it was no shame of Lytol's, who had not known that she still lived, but it was another indication that there were things on Pern that were seriously wrong.

T'bor visited Lytol himself as a matter of courtesy; and the Lord Warder was mightily upset that one who should have been his dependant was so needy. He and T'bor came to an accommodation; and Lytol began looking into the needs and backgrounds of the few Holdless in Ruatha. He also donated generously to the High Reaches Weyr Childhold. After all, as Lytol pointed out, Jaxom was an orphan; and although a very privileged orphan, he, Lytol, knew that the boy had found it hard without proper parents to turn to. He promised to discuss the matter with the youthful Lord Holder too.

Another newcomer to the Weyr in the Spring was more or less expected; and whilst initially more demanding, certainly a very welcome addition. Zallon was born to Z'ira after an unseemly short labour and even more impatient, Calla said, than his father.

H'llon, injured by such comments, said that he was only impatient sometimes and not about important things like putting a good finish to a piece of woodwork.

Z'kan grinned as only a grandfather for the first time can.

"She's joshing you lad" he said "Aye, well, at least he's not in such a hurry that he's Impresses one of Tamalenth's eggs before they're even laid!"

"Even High Reaches isn't QUITE that contrary" murmured Z'ira, relishing the relief of numbweed as Calla applied stitches to the tear Zallon had made with his precipitate departure.

It was little more than a sevenday later that the news of the safe arrival of Kaili's daughter, Kaitra, came. Kaili also wrote that her friend Lowri had not long since birthed a son whom Lowri and Alaran had called Loaman.

oOoOo

During this time, the next batch of Green Dragons had risen for the first time; Mi'a's Sukith had been caught by Brown Breeth, whose Rider R'ben was a friend of T'rin and was himself musical enough to appreciate the skill of the Harpers without being good enough to be one himself; and he had admired the Harper girl for some time.

Mi'a, shy herself, had admired her Journeyman's friend as well; fortunately the dragons succeeded where the shyness of the Riders had prevented their managing to talk about things!

Ri'a had formed a relationship with Brown Rider S'sar, younger brother of Bronze Rider T'sellan, the friend and clutchmate of T'lana. Ri'a's forthright manner suited the weyrbred Rider very well, and she and S'sar were almost as famous for their quarrels and making up as Y'lara and M'kel. The third girl of that group, Sh'anne, was a careful and meticulously methodical girl, more mature than many; and she had cultivated a friendship with T'ral, the younger brother of Sh'allen, second dragonhealer under R'gar. Brown Firath was more than equal to flying Amianth, who was a large, strong Green dragon, if not so large as B'lan's Leviath. Sh'anne was one of a number of girls the Weyr's upper echelon considered to be more capable than many a Gold Rider in other Weyrs. This was one reason the Weyr as a whole treated ALL weyrwomen, Gold or Green Riders, with almost equal respect.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

T'bor's radical reorganisation of the way the Weyr flew against Thread led to R'gar being needed as a Wingleader; and the Bronze Rider succumbed to the suggestion of his weyrmate to have D're pick him a little bronze firelizard egg to act as an extra eye for Laranth; Impressed to R'gar the little creature would also be Impressed to Laranth through the telepathic contact.

Laranth usually tolerated T'lana's Merry, and snorted at other firelizards; and pretended to be huffy about the whole idea whilst being secretly – or not so secretly, for R'gar and T'lana saw right through him – enchanted by the little bronze miniature of himself. Infinitely curious, the firelizard was quickly dubbed 'Nosy' by R'gar; and Laranth was seen to permit his new little pet to ride around on his head the way Merry did on Mirrith.

Laranth did however refuse to be a party to silly tricks such as Merry and Mirrith played; so Nosy joined them, so that one lizard flew at full tilt into Mirrith's yawning mouth and went _Between_ while the other 'emerged' at the other end with appropriate sounds of effort as though struggling out of the tail fork.

As T'lana said, it kept them amused and harmed no-one.

And the distractions of the antics of firelizards aside, the new formations worked well once everyone was used to them.

T'bor disliked the large Wings of thirty dragons; he felt them inflexible. Instead he organised wings of eighteen dragons, but put five wings in a Flight, ninety dragons, which meant that each Flight has the same numbers as a supposedly optimal Fight of three Wings where the Wings held thirty dragons. It meant that he needed to have Brown Riders as a number of his Wingleaders; but he had a mix of both experienced Riders and Benden bred Browns and felt the compromise worth it. Each Flight has three Bronze-riding Wingleaders leading the most experienced Riders in the front ranks, who bore the brunt of Fall; T'bor kept Orth separate from any Wing so that the big Benden Bronze could stay mobile and help out where help was needed. With T'lana's ability to hear any dragon, directing Orth was no problem. Two of T'bor's sons, T'kil and B'kyle were Flightleaders; Weyrsecond L'gani another, and M'gol the fourth. Four full flights was a good number; and more than theoretically required; though as few Greens could fly the whole of Fall, it was custom to change all Greens half way through.

T'bor went a step further.

Halfway through Fall the entire two wings changed, the tired Bronzes staying if they felt able for extra cover but dropping to the Queen's Wing to relieve some of the weaker Greens there.

The formation of the protective Wing under H'llon consisting of those dragons with the greatest endurance and the steadiest riders was used to cover Changeover as well as covering weyrlings being blooded by bringing in firestone. With flamethrowers as well as firestone the Protective Wing did an excellent job, the Riders and dragons both wearing helmets and eyeshields of well resined skybroom wood plates to protect the most vulnerable parts from Thread.

At Changeover the two outgoing Flights dropped in altitude by five lengthes and the incoming Flights arrived in formation, the lower dragons departing as each line was replaced. It would have been risky without H'llon and his Wing above them; but with the Protective Wing it worked!

H'llon's people joined the Fighting Wings sometime before halfway through Fall, emerging behind the Trailing Edge of Fall and at a higher altitude – about three hundred to three hundred and fifty lengths up – to use that height to catch up with the fighting Wings at two hundred and fifty lengths up; and remaining just above them. By using height as a substitute for speed they might avoid arriving in clumps of Thread and make their way safely to an optimal position. They then had only to protect themselves and the soon to be arriving weyrlings with their sacks of firestone, and too cover those Riders feeding firestone to their dragons. The main wings took care of keeping Thread from below. The tactic of arriving high and from behind worked so well that T'bor directed the weyrlings to do the same: and casualties reduced yet again.

Height equated with both speed and distance after all; and H'llon proved graphically that the ceiling for practical flight was about seven hundred and fifty lengths, at which point breathing became difficult and lift was significantly reduced.

H'llon and Melth reached around nine hundred lengths in experimentation; but neither enjoyed the experience much and deemed it too risky. They both reported feeling giddy, but H'llon managed to take height measurements before he passed out and Melth maintained that he was still able to function and had thought it best to bring his unconscious Rider back to a more equable level.

As T'rin said,

"Anyone who can do trigonometry when half unconscious is three parts genius and one part idiot."

H'llon just grinned and agreed!

oOoOo

The greatest test for the new formation came one wildly windy day when Thread fell in clumps that swirled viciously in the cruel wind.

It was a time that further convinced T'bor that he had been right to stay separate from the flights; he needed all his attention to assess the situation and direct rapid formation changes. T'lana's ability to speak telepathically to humans too came in handy; without having to go through Orth she directed changes almost as soon as the need was formed in T'bor's own mind! He had been uncomfortable about it at first, but blessed it that day, for the split seconds it saved, that meant, he saw with his own eyes, the difference between having light wounds on some of his Riders instead of heavy scoring.

T'bor diverted the entire changeover flight to come in high and dive; it was a less precise manoeuvre but far safer. He also directed weyrlings to come in, in groups of no more than four, each protected all the way to their rider by three of H'llon's Wing.

There were no deaths; one tattered mainsail and four minor scores over all.

And that was a major victory in such circumstances; for the last time conditions had been so unfortuitous, Tath had died and a hundred Riders and dragons had been scored, almost a score of them seriously.

The flaming of the firelizards was helpful too; and T'bor was seriously considering issuing a directive that all fighting Riders should Impress at least one firelizard.

H'llon's fair of four meant that the Bronze Rider was able to give more attention to the youngsters he protected; and R'cal's three were hardly less effective.

R'cal should make a trip to his secret island and collect enough eggs to make sure that the Riders of the Protective Wing at least had three or more lizards each!

The Protective Wing visited the island and its natural Weyr to undertake as many Impressions as possible; and also brought back more eggs to distribute!

Varalie and Jerissa came legitimately to the Weyr with the Biron younger son of Holder Bitrul of Two Springs Hold and another child disguised as a drudge and with less legitimacy; whose identity as Bitrul's younger daughter Mallitta the women of the Weyr firmly kept from T'bor so he could answer Bitrul honestly when the man came to complain, for though Mallitta was over twelve and technically had the Right, Bitrul was opposed to anything to do with dragons.

Bitrul's failure to recognise his own daughter well disguised as a boy was a matter of some relief, but his intemperate language and the foul epithets he had hurled at T'arla for neither knowing nor caring about the gender of a child she brought in were a matter that T'bor felt he should apologise over; and when that apology was not forthcoming, T'bor withdrew cover from Two Springs.

Lord Deckter swiftly removed the bone of contention – Holder Bitrul – from the Hold, putting his older son in his place and service was resumed as usual. Deckter was not about to permit the numerous spawn of Meron to cause trouble with the Weyr!

oOoOo

Of more moment to most people was a visit from the Masterharper and Masters Domick and Shonagar; T'rin had written a cantata that called for performances from firelizards and dragons too as well as highlighting the pure voice of a lad who had come to be prepared for an apprenticeship at the Harper Hall under the pretext of Search and who had Impressed as well.

K'bit had a wonderful voice; it soared high and clear with the firelizard voices. The most wonderful thing, the Weyrfolk agreed, was that the sound would be saved for all time, for H'llon had managed to duplicate a machine called a phonograph that could record sound for the turning of a handle!

The performance took place in the hatching cavern in a hurry since though the clutch were not laid, Tamalenth might be expected to be clutching very soon and wanted the cavern available. The Harperweyr were anxious to accommodate her wishes of course!

T'rin had the result he wanted from the performance; Master Shonagar was to stay on at the Weyr for a while to train K'bit personally! The Harperweyr was doing very well; and all were pleased that a girl they HAD sent on to the Harper Hall, Meeri, T'arla's cousin, was doing well studying under Master Domick.

And T'rin said that if this was the only work of his that ever approached greatness it was a humbling thing that it should be the first work ever to be recorded; and if he wrote nothing more, he still felt that this work that surpassed anything he had ever written was at least worth recording.

And meanwhile the candidates who were coming in already for the clutch not yet laid seemed on the whole to be very promising; and all in life looked well!

As T'lana was later to say, it was possible with hindsight to see that too much complacency obviously tempted fate.

oOoOo

The theft of the Queen Egg from Benden Weyr was a terrible shock.

T'bor went to Benden, naturally, to give support and any aid he might; and tried not to be glad that it was not Tamalenth's clutch, for the High Reaches Queen was very egg heavy. Even so, T'bor had a feeling that L'rilly, volatile as she might be, might handle herself better than Lessa; who was incandescent with fury and not ready to listen to anyone.

It was the oddest thing that the egg arrived back, suddenly, while they were all discussing it, though this did not in any wise seem to soothe Lessa as one might have thought it should.

And reports were being made by firelizards of them being flamed by dragons; and a small, dark dragon collecting the egg from …..somewhere. Or somewhen.

_Denth?_ thought T'bor. It would be the sort of thing the logicators might do, to reason out when and where the Oldtimers had taken it – nobody had any doubt as to the culprits, they having disappeared from their Weyr in the present time as they had when Ramoth and Mnementh went to look.

Firelizards were a sore subject however; as the thieves had used their firelizards to give visualisations so that three Bronze dragons could come and steal the egg while Ramoth was feeding. But the egg HAD been returned – by someone!

Which even when the condition of it had been checked and found it unharmed if further developed than the others seemed to make little difference to Lessa. She even snapped at Masterharper Robinton's calm words of wisdom trying to persuade her of the insane folly of pitting dragon against dragon purely for revenge, which Lessa seemed to want to do!

T'bor came away and sought out his own Weyrwomen to ask them what they thought.

T'lana frowned.

"About Lessa's disgraceful behaviour as you describe it, or Denth and the egg?" she asked.

"Both" said T'bor.

"Jaxom was there, wasn't he?" said T'lana. "You said he turned giddy. He and Ruth know Benden – if I was him, I'd darken Ruth's hide to retrieve any egg. Firelizards talk to Ruth; I wager it was he and Jaxom got visualisation. And the dizziness was from Timing it."

"That's a relief, actually" said T'bor "Lessa's so angry at the moment that if she thought our people had anything to do with it I'm not sure she'd stop to think of it as a rescue."

T'lana frowned.

"And no-one dares brook her famous temper I suppose?" asked the little weyrwoman.

"Except F'lar; and she's not even listening to him" said T'bor helplessly.

"Well she's next thing to being my foster mother; so I shall go and tell her that it's unacceptable" said T'lana, striding to the door.

"But…" said T'bor

"Let her go" said Pilgra "If anyone can talk Lessa down, it's F'lar's daughter; and if she can't it doesn't sound like the situation could get any worse. Even if some dragonmen are crazy enough to follow her in an attack on Southern, they wouldn't attack High Reaches Weyr; even R'mart and we are not his favourite people!"

"We will NOT let anyone attack Southern" said T'bor.

"Certainly not" said Pilgra "Whatever they have done their dragons do not deserve it; and if necessary we Queenriders will stand together and make the other Weyrs go through us. That'll bring them up short."

"Dead right" said L'rilly "I don't think even I have ever behaved THAT badly!"

T'bor looked relieved.

Pilgra had such calm good sense!

oOoOo

T'lana walked in on Lessa as the Benden Weyrwoman was shouting after F'lar that she did not care HOW much she had hurt the Masterharper, how hurt did he think she was by the insult to her, her Blood, Benden and Ramoth over this disgusting theft?

"Your BLOOD eh, Lessa?" said T'lana coldly "How proud your Ruathan ancestors would be to hear you screaming in a temper tantrum like some spoilt Holderbrat! Is it in your Blood to act so childishly when no harm ultimately has been done to anything but your overweening pride?"

Lessa gaped, glared, and slapped T'lana hard.

The little redhead stumbled and fell from the force of the blow, rolling as R'gar and F;lar had taught her to stand again; and fought her own temper.

She smiled a brittle smile and took off her belt, handing it to Lessa.

"I understand the spoilt brats of the Lords often like to take out their temper beating drudges" she said "Why not make a proper job of it? If you have taken leave of your senses enough to strike another Queenrider you may as well do the job fully."

Lessa struck the proffered belt out of T'lana's outstretched hand and commenced shrieking at her from a few inches away.

The gist was muddled; but ranged from T'lana not understanding to being the get of HER man, and from not understanding the pride of Blood to having the impudence to speak to her like that.

T'lana listened to the diatribe with a look of polite interest on her face, forcing herself to do no more, scorning to rub the bruised cheekbone that was already coming out in several rainbow colours. When Lessa finally ran down enough to pause for breath, she asked calmly,

"Does making like a Tillek fishwife make you feel any better, Lessa?"

Lessa stared; then burst into tears.

T'lana put her arms around her and led her to the couch, rocking and shushing her like a hurt child.

"Dear, dear Lessa, I had to be cruel to reach you" murmured T'lana into Lessa's neat ear. "You and Ramoth are feeding off each other's irrational levels of anger you know, and it's going to hurt her too"

Lessa jerked, and stared at T'lana.

"We have every right to be angry!" she declared.

"Of course – to be angry. To lose your heads? That, my dear stepmother is the instinct of Ramoth talking – the same sort of instinct that lead to the deaths of Wirenth and Prideth. Would you really want Ramoth to send Lorath _Between_ for all time – whatever you think of Mardra – and risk Lorath holding on to her and taking her too? Or risk the life or sanity of your only son if the Oldtimers decided that if you were determined that they should die they'd take from you what you valued most? Because that's the way I'd feel if you attacked MY Weyr, Lessa – get in as much retaliation as possible first. And T'kul is HEAPS more vindictive than I am; he's had four hundred turns start on me!" and she pulled a droll face at that and was rewarded that her feeble joke won half a smile from Lessa despite the horror of T'lana's suggestion.

"I – but we've been insulted!" said Lessa.

"I'd have said, personally, that it was a compliment to pick only the best" said T'lana. "T'kul knows High Reaches Weyr inside out; he had only to wait for one of our Queens to clutch a Queen egg. Tamalenth's never laid one; and she's egg heavy from a good long flight. It would have been easier for him. But he wanted the best!"

"They SHOULD be punished" said Lessa.

"Heh, and you think they haven't been, in chagrin that somebody either stole it back, or one of their own had a fit of conscience and returned it? And if it were the latter, would you punish whoever HE was for doing the right thing now snap out of the fighting mating dragon mode; you're a human. And you didn't banish the Oldtimers just to act as spitefully as them."

"I'm not!" Lessa was shocked.

"You have suggested the unthinkable, dear one. It was said in heat; but you have also bitten at those who have you r best interests at heart. And THAT was inexcusable without apology you know. Robinton has held Pern together quite as much as you and F'lar and he's still doing his job doing that – and putting his head on the block for the love of YOU to stop you doing something you WOULD regret. You owe him one big hug and lots of Benden Red."

Lessa wept again but pulled herself together.

"He – he won't want to talk to me" she said in a small voice.

"Oh yes he will. He loves you as much as if he were one of your Bronze Riders" said T'lana. "When this little Queen hatches it'll be an emotional time and a good time to make it right."

"How come you get to lecture me?" Lessa was half resentful and half amused.

"Turns of being Weyrlingmistress I suppose" shrugged T'lana "Dealing with hurt children, betrayed children, stroppy children….hurt children often behave badly you know; but they have to be shocked out of the bad before you can address the hurt sometimes. Grown ups work just the same, but their over-reaction can have further reaching consequences than a kid who's been beaten on all his life hitting out at others. It was bad. It's better. Get over it."

"Did you really think I was being childish?" Lessa wanted to know.

"Yes, Lessa; you were. It was disgraceful; and not worthy of Ruatha OR Benden. You can permit F'lar to explain to others that your mood was coloured by Ramoth's instincts – which isn't far off the truth – and live it down. If you're too stubborn and still feel childish enough NOT to take a step back, you'll never live it down. Do you want the Harpers tales to speak of Benden as the Weyr that did war as Fax did war?"

That made a real impact; Lessa gasped in real horror.

"He – there's no comparison!" she cried.

"Isn't there? His PRIDE made him want more; your PRIDE will not let you swallow the impudence, indeed imprudence, of some desperate fools. He did not NEED more Holds. You do not NEED to pit dragon on dragon for the egg is returned" said T'lana relentlessly.

"I feel quite wretched" said Lessa.

"Of course you do, dear one" said T'lana "why don't you suit up and go for a long fly Straight on Ramoth? Mnementh will guard her eggs for her. I always find looking down at the beautiful land beneath me calms me down if I'm in a strop, and reminds me of why I'm a Dragonrider. We protect; it's what we are and what we do and THAT is what it's worth putting our lives on the line for."

"I don't like you much at the moment" said Lessa scowling.

"No, dear one; we never do like those who make us look at what we don't like in ourselves" said T'lana cheerfully "But it doesn't matter if you never like me again; I'll survive it. It does matter that you know how right Master Robinton was and how much deep down you do love him too; he, like you and F'lar is Pern. And you MUST all work together. If it helps you to hate me, dear one, go right ahead and do it: I'll be sad but I'll live with it."

"I'd like you to go away for now, T'lana: I – I really don't know how I feel."

"Better for the howl, dear one, I wager" T'lana stood on tiptoes to kiss Lessa's startled cheek and was away.

oOoOo

Ramoth scowled at T'lana and hissed warningly; she did NOT like the proximity of T'lana's firelizard Merry perched safely on Mirrith's head right outside where she could see them; and took out her irritation by hissing malevolently at T'lana.

"Oh boil your bottom, Big One" said T'lana cheerfully "You know I'm no more impressed by your hissy fits than I am by Lessa's. and I'd bite YOU harder than you'd bite me."

Ramoth was startled.

She hunched up, sulking.

T'lana laughed.

"Lovely Ramoth, you will feel better when the hatching is over" she said; and went to climb up onto Mirrith.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

T'lana reported back to T'bor.

"Dragons will not fight dragons" she said.

T'bor let out an explosive sigh of relief.

"Glad I am to hear THAT! Pilgra suggested all our Queens form a line between Benden dragons and Southern dragons if it came to it."

T'lana considered.

"That would probably have worked" she said "But we shan't, I am glad to say, have to test it."

"What happened?" he wanted to know.

T'lana shrugged and gave a potted report. Lessa could not have meant to keep their encounter a secret anyway; as T'lana said you could have heard her clear to Lemos!

T'bor grinned.

Lemos was two time zones behind Benden Weyr.

"It was mostly Ramoth then? I mean, Lessa's always been bad tempered" he said. T'lana shrugged.

"That was unreasonable, even for Lessa. I think that the maternal instincts of a clutching dragon would be as strong as the mating urges in their own way and all female dragons can get VERY snippy prior to mating – and Golds around clutching, until all the eggs are Impressed" reminded T'lana.

"That's Faranth's own truth" said T'bor. "I'd rather be able to consider it as instinct frenzy than Lessa losing the plot so much."

"Me too" said T'lana "I'm FOND of Lessa; but I disliked the person she was sounding like. Trouble is, she's stubborn and HATES being in the wrong; I hope she can back down to say sorry to Robinton, even if that apology is wordless."

"I'll let you know" said T'bor, who reckoned that the mercurial little redhead had a need to know as she might just be the only person on Pern who had any idea how to actually keep Lessa in check.

oOoOo

The Queen egg hatched before the others; being much more hardened; and T'bor went to the hatching, keeping quiet about Tamalenth's clutching the day after the Queen egg fracas, in case it set Lessa off again; and that though there was a golden egg it was no larger than the smallest eggs in the clutch.

He came back with good news and bad news.

"Lessa hugged and kissed Robinton as if nothing had ever happened" he reported "Which chirked HIM up no end; but D'ram has stood down as Weyrleader. They say Fanna can't last much longer. When Caylith – their next Queen – rises it'll be an open flight."

"Poor D'ram" said T'lana "I guess it brings home how lucky L'rilly was in where her growth was situated. Well, no likely surprises for the next Weyrleader; G'dened'll fly Cosira. Barnath's fast."

oOoOo

Two days later the dragons keened for Fanna's Mirath; the Weyrwoman had died.

oOoOo

The shock of Kullana's potentially life-threatening accident falling off the steps in the hatching cavern as she ran with a drum message, and narrowly missed falling onto the little golden egg caused much consternation; especially when it was discovered that the steps had been deliberately greased!

It was only by the greatest luck that Kullana had suffered nothing worse then a broken leg and a broken arm; and when the senior members of the weyr reflected just how close she had landed to the golden egg – she might reach out to touch it had her broken arm not prevented it – they shuddered.

T'rin, as a Harper, held enquiry; and when no-one would admit to it being a thoughtless prank announced that he had no choice but to assume that a death was intended; and that it therefore was to be considered a crime. And Tamalenth wished to participate since her daughter had so nearly been a victim.

R'gar had been the likely target; the grease was spread just below the step where he was accustomed to stand for a good overview of the candidates as they viewed the eggs. He had stayed on the ground on that day only on account of having broken up a fight earlier that he wished to be a sufficient presence to see did not break out again.

A fingerprint had been left in the grease however; to the delight of T'rin and H'llon since the Weyrwoodcrafter had pioneered this means of identification. T'rin however went through all the motions of eliminating those who could NOT have pulled such a stunt, having the window of opportunity only while Tamalenth was hunting. It increased the suspense and drove home by that means just how seriously the Weyr took the act, and more particularly the refusal to own up.

It was an object lesson for all to learn that their sins would eventually find them out!

The last three who could not prove where they were while Tamalenth was away were reduced to the two who had access to the grease.

The boy Dwissom's fingerprint was the one on the step; and it was no surprise to anyone.

He was sent out of the Weyr – on foot – and message taken to the Beastcraft Hall whence he originated demanding injury price on behalf of Kullana; and theft price too since he was in the habit of teasing one of the younger female candidates Carinn by stealing items of her clothing to make her think she had lost it.

Carinn was careless enough; but she had long had her suspicions, especially as Dwissom was wont to grab something from her and hold it out of reach of the little girl, taunting her, despite having been remonstrated with by the other girls and R'gar too.

It gave T'bor the greatest satisfaction to write to the boy's Masters that they should watch him for his predilection for concealing female underwear in his own goods – this was purely to spite Carinn; but it ought to get the boy into the trouble he deserved since the Beastcrafters were more likely to take a dim view of potential sexual deviancy than the risk to a Queen Egg and weyr brat who was only a girl in any case.

The Beastcrafters grumbled; but they paid up.

Having the boy's habits, including the stealing of the underwear of little girls, aired before a conclave of Craftmasters if the Weyr demanded a hearing was NOT to their tastes!

oOoOo

Kullana caused another shock at Impression. Having heard, of course, of Kate's story, her future self deposited the little girl, well bandaged, on the Impression ground in time to Impress Gold Jeshimoth before the little dragon left the cavern seeking her.

"Meeting herself like that… her future self might die of it!" said Pilgra, upset, for K'lana, as she now was, was her fosterling.

"Kate survived" said T'lana "And wrote about it."

"She must be careful not to touch her or speak to her" said T'bor. "T'rin, who's the only person she takes much notice of, must impress that on her."

Pilgra nodded.

"The dragon held her in this time; no eye contact; that could work."

"She'd trade her life tobe with Jeshimoth two turns anyway, I wager, if you asked her" said T'lana softly. "The tune she wrote, lying injured on the ground, was when she first felt the little creature, I'm guessing. It tells of utter joy. Through all that pain. If that wasn't already Impression I don't know what is; she KNEW then, you know."

T'bor pulled a face.

"It's been unwontedly dramatic this time" he said.

"So Re'ga Impressed in the tiers – but she was on the sand really with Lavanni's chair" said T'lana "And B'mall was thinking of coming to the Weyr anyway: and M'gol and Z'kan dropped him over the barrier fast enough when they realised what was happening. And so he's over age; I for one LIKE having older Bronze Riders. They're less wherrybrained. We need steady men for the complex patterns that we fly."

T'bor brightened.

"There is that of course" he admitted "And it does solve the Hold-Weyr problems of his and V'lie's attachment. And I mean to use it as an excuse to raise the age at which we refuse candidates to twenty five turns providing the senior members of the weyr agree on a case-by-case basis."

"Dragons know; it works out if you leave it to them" said Pilgra, using one of T'lana's maxims.

"Tamalenth's happy enough with it all anyway" said L'rilly "And it was her clutch; so I guess she has some say in the matter!"

oOoOo

Shortly after the hatching, Mirrith rose; which was a good excuse for all the weyrlings to take a holiday since the Weyrlingmaster and Weyrlingmistress were significantly otherwise engaged. T'rin was however heard to say,

"Trust Mirrith to take the shine in any situation!" for it was the day picked for the Harperweyr to announce the Masterharper's confirmation of F'lim and K'iara as Journeymen; and to present T'arla and Mi'a with senior apprentice tassels!

Carlinna was glad there would be another clutch; she had put a lot of work into learning about art since she had discovered what the important things in life were, and intended standing this time. She would stand with another art apprentice, a weyrbred lad called Gwetar, who had applied for apprenticeship and been accepted by Geriana. His parents, sensibly enough, had not wanted him to either apprentice or stand for Impression until he was over twelve turns; and Geriana approved. Tawn, her youngest apprentice, was a special case, a Holdless child sent in by Petrilla, who had care of his three siblings; Tawn was the youngest and it made sense to see him somewhere safe and comfortable and an apprenticeship would be a good enough excuse even had the boy not been remarkably talented.

In addition to drawing very well, Tawn carved exquisite cameo scenes on shells, and Geriana had introduced him to harder rocks with coloured layers.

Gwetor was talented; and got on well too with Boral, a turn shy of Impressionable age but a talented enough artist already.

K'iara had also received word from her sister Teffie that she would be prepared to stand for a Green dragon; and K'iara let her sister know that a mating flight had just taken place to give her three months to prepare in.

oOoOo

Mirrith was not exactly pugnacious when Ramoth bespoke her to say that the Benden Weyrwoan wanted to speak with her rider; but it was close.

Ramoth had been decidedly snippy about the presence of Merry on their last visit; and the two weyrwomen had not parted even as friends, let alone as warmly as sometimes. Mirrith looked upon Merry as her own personal pet and was decidedly snippy with to anyone who disparaged the little creature, and especially those who were threatening. And of course like all dragons she was fiercely protective towards her Rider.

T'lana was not entirely free of trepidation over meeting Lessa again for the first time since their contretemps; though she was sensible enough to realise that the long silence from Lessa was largely due to the other matters consuming the mind of the Benden Weyrwoman, firstly the disappearance of D'ram, his recovery and reassurance that he was wanted once Jaxom had found him; and then the Ruathan Lord Holder's own subsequent illness with firehead, a condition that was still at this time to be considered critical.

That subject was however a good opening; Lessa took a personal interest in Jaxom, having both renounced Ruatha in his favour, and because of his Impression of Ruth, Ramoth's only sport egg.

"How's Lord Jaxom?" T'lana asked accordingly as she entered Lessa's weyr.

"Brekke says he's doing as well as can be expected; which is Healer-speak for she doesn't think he's going to die, probably" said Lessa, pulling a face. "I'm looking forward to him being well enough to give a good telling-off to!"

T'lana grinned.

"I suspect there'll be a queue for that – with Lytol at its head" she said. "Meanwhile, what can I do for you. Lessa?"

"Give me a hug for one thing" said Lessa "You were right, scorch it! And I've been frazzled to the tail with a dozen things since…"

T'lana gladly complied with an embrace.

"You haven't had an easy ride lately" she said.

"No and domestic problems are what I need you for" said Lessa "It's a girl we have here" she sighed.

"Oh?"

"Well you have a reputation for taming girls who are a problem. Like Lirilly – er, L'rilly, I mean."

"Most people aren't a problem when you assess what's making them unhappy enough to behave badly; it's the truly spoilt who can't realise that they're unhappy who can't be cured" said T'lana.

"You'll try then?" Lessa brightened.

"Not without that you tell me something about her and in which wise she's a problem" said T'lana.

"Didn't I?"

"No dear one; you didn't" said T'lana gently.

"Oh, sorry! Too many things happening I guess; well, Aderina is weyrbred, she's fourteen so I can't send her home because she has no other. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that she made a pass at a Bronze Rider and then hospitalised him by biting his…..well, his manhood…..half off when he took her up on it."

"Hmmm. Was it after a disappointment on a flight?" asked T'lana.

"Well….yes. but she had come on to him…."

"And at fourteen I bet she didn't understand half of what she was doing, you know, and got frightened; especially if he still had the throes of dragonlust on him. It can be frightening you know!"

"She IS weyrbred; and the age of choice. She ought to know what's what" said Lessa.

"Oh Lessa! Girls actually taking notice of what goes on around them at that age? Believe me, we've had a few who profess more knowledge than they have in order to show off – and I reckon there's that in it. Have the child sent in; I'll talk to her. And I'd be obliged, dear one, if you hang back and let me draw her out without her having the feeling that The Weyrwoman is breathing flame down her neck. If you wouldn't mind listening from your sleeping cavern I'd be obliged."

"Well you know these girls" shrugged Lessa.

oOoOo

Aderina was a sullen looking girl with short, dark brown locks around an elfin face whose big grey eyes looked too large for it. T'lana thought she looked she looked younger than her turns.

"Hello Aderina" said the little weyrwoman "I'm T'lana; I ride Gold Mirrith and Lessa thought I might be able to help you because I have suffered rape myself."

Shock registered in the pale face.

"But….she's ANGRY with me!"

"She's angry that a situation got out of hand when she was too busy with other things to nip it in the bud" temporised T'lana diplomatically. She could FEEL Lessa wanting to speak out where she was concealed and pushed with her mind to dissuade her. Lessa held herself in check.

T'lana smiled a friendly smile and went on,

"I reckon it went this way; there are always silly girls – and a lot of candidates for Gold Eggs are the silliest I'VE ever met – who pretend to know everything about sex. Nine out of ten of them are lying and the tenth boasting because she's not actually got a very happy life and is pretending her experiences are better than they usually are. They lie because they want to seem knowledgeable and sophisticated. That sounding at all familiar?"

The girl stared, her mouth open.

"But – but they must know!" said Aderina "They laughed at me and called me and innocent little ninny when I asked questions and when I said I'd never even flirted!"

"Heh" said T'lana "Bet they didn't answer your questions though – no, thought not!" as Aderina shook her head. "Because they didn't even know the answer…..you see, by making you feel small they make themselves feel bigger, each one pretending that they knew the answer, beliving that all the rest already did; only they were all pretending!"

"Why?" asked Aderina.

"Because people in a Weyr are said to be sexually sophisticated and the little wherry-heads are afraid of looking fools in front of weyrfolk. And too if they are nervous of the size of Ramoth making themselves feel big in other respects is natural if not very nice" T'lana explained.

"Oh but how can that be? There's nothing to be nervous of about Ramoth, is there?" said Aderina "I mean, she has to do snippy at candidates to test the potential riders for her children; but a dragon NEVER hurts people!"

"Which proves in some respects at least you've a ton more common sense than some of those silly girls" said T'lana dryly. "You felt out of it all though with this ridiculous game of 'I've kissed more men than you' and made a dead set for the best looking Rider you could find?"

"You make it sound childish" said Aderina sulkily.

"Well it is, a little, isn't it?" said T'lana "And in many ways you still are a child so that's not entirely surprising. The problem lies with you being – just – of the age of choice, and entitles to be treated as an adult without necessarily feeling like one. For shards' sake, though, why pick a man in the throes of dragonlust? That was downright wherry-headed!"

Aderina blushed.

"I – I thought he might actually be interested then; I already asked another Rider and he laughed and told me to go back to the Harper to learn nursery rhymes. And – and I'm rather plain…."

"My dear child, you're very pretty" said T'lana "And when you stop growing upwards and fill out a little you'll be a beauty. I see; but you miscalculated about how much dragonlust messes with the head, huh? Because you don't even know what it is to feel ordinary lust yet, right?"

Aderina flushed again and nodded.

"I – I asked him to stop; he was going too far, I was scared!" she said "And – and I tried to push him away!"

T'lana's eyes narrowed.

"Still half involved or not, THAT is all the Rider's fault" she said and raised her voice. "Lessa; he deserves to have his bits bitten; if a Rider at High Reaches didn't desist on being asked to do so, if the girl he was forcing himself on hadn't bitten him I would have!"

Lessa emerged.

"Yes, dear, but you are a wild piece" she said "Well, Aderina, now you have been able to tell everything I can feel more sympathy for your actions because I had not understood all the facts. He acted improperly. I was angered because it puts a fighting Bronze Rider out of action and puts his fellows at more risk. You might have been less DRASTIC."

"I'm sorry Lessa; I panicked" said Aderina "And I wasn't thinking. Oh weyrwoman T'lana did you then bite the man who raped you?"

Tears stood in T'lana's eyes at the memory.

"No; I dared not. His friends were threatening my friends; they had crossbows that could have killed our dragons if they knew we were weyrwomen. I had to submit. But at least I was sexually experienced with a good and loving weyrmate; and I assure you, dragonlust with your OWN dragon involved is an entirely different proposition; as is sex when you are willing. Rape bears as much relation to sex as being threshed with a belt does to being given a healing massage; or taking a purgative does to eating bubbly pies."

"You're not still young enough to think with your stomach are you T'lana?" said Lessa.

T'lana grinned.

"I am if Keerana's making the bubbly pies" she said. "Well, Aderina, Lessa suggests that you make a new start at High Reaches Weyr where you won't have to see the man who attacked you; in my opinion he deserves what he got, though Lessa's point about his wingmen not deserving reduced cover is a cogent one. Bronze Riders are supposed to be the steadiest and most honourable. Well I dare say Lessa feels you've punished him enough; but it would still be embarrassing to see him around. Will you like to move? You can come to me any time to talk about it, to have a cry, to ask advice or whatever. Or even ask those specific questions which I will answer as fully as I may. And you know now not to listen to idiots, hmm?"

Aderina nodded.

"Oh yes please, weyrwoman; I'd like that" she said.

"Good that's settled" said T'lana. "You can get your things then while Lessa feeds me klah; and you've three months to decide whether you want to stand for a Green dragon at our next clutching or whether you prefer to wait. Run along and pack now!"

Aderina ran along!

The redheaded High Reaches weyrwoman put all her mixed up feelings in so matter-of-fact way it made sense of them – she was not the only person to feel this way! And T'lana understood all the pain and fear that everyone else seemed to dismiss and blame her for!

oOoOo

Aderina was not the only new girl to the Weyr; when T'lana returned with the girl it was to the news that Geriana had birthed a daughter, red faces and protesting, who was to be called Gesenka to incorporate elements of Geri's name and those of all her lovers, brothers S'net and S'negen in the middle syllable and the end syllable for B'kas, the baby's other mother as the young Green rider claimed that he was!

And so fuddled with pride as he was, he reported to T'lana that Geriana had clutched and it was a Queen!

T'lana hugged and kissed him fondly; B'kas was a sweet and very ladylike youth!


	6. Chapter 6

_Thanks to my anonymous reviewers and anyone I can't PM to thanks personally. You may have noticed that it's a little bitty in places, because I wrote this behind-the-scenes as it were for my own reference but decided to share. The stitching shows in places..._**  
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**Chapter 6**

The news of the Istan mating flight's imminence had several riders requesting permission to go; most of the marks were on Barnath to fly Caylith, but other opinions were held!

The loyalty towards T'bor was such, however, that none of the Bronze Riders requested permission to join the flight in the hopes of becoming Weyrleader of Ista Weyr; they were all happy to follow T'bor. Had G'dened, D'ram's son, known he would have been quite relieved; High Reaches fielded five Benden-bred Bronzes besides T'bor's Orth and most of the other Bronzes were either sired or clutched by a Benden bred dragon.

The flight was not without drama.

The terrible tragedy of T'kul and B'zon'z folly, leading to the death of Salth was broadcast by the keening of all the dragons at High Reaches Weyr; whatever T'kul had done, Salth had once been a High Reaches dragon.

On the tail of this came news that T'kul, maddened by grief was fighting F'lar; though the news of the fight was rapidly followed by news of F'lar's victory. T'bor was glad that some of his people had gone to witness the flight; it meant that T'lana could pick up a fairly coherent story from the collected dragon minds she knew.

He spread the true story quickly to make sure that no wild rumours circulated instead.

T'rin discovered K'lana howling heartbrokenly.

"What is it, funnyface?" he said, squatting down to give the little girl a cuddle "Why you never even KNEW T'kul!"

"No, and now I'll never have the chance to spit in his eye and kick him in the nuts!" howled K'lana "And he was still my father!"

From this T'rin deduced a peculiar love-hate relationship must exist; and as K'lana continued to sob disjointedly about THEM hating him – her aunt and grandmother, he surmised – there was a perverse corner of her strange little mind that loved him despite everything without even knowing him because the ones who had been so cruel to her and her sister-aunt had hated him.

It almost made sense; at least from K'lana's strange little viewpoint. T'rin just cuddled and shushed her until her sobs subsided and her eyes took on that far away look that meant that she was tuning. Once that came out and was written down she would move on; so T'rin handed her paper with staves printed on it – courtesy of H'llon – and left her to it.

Soon his concern was more for the Masterharper, whose illness the dragons relayed; and L'gal and he left rapidly for Ista so that their dragons might also be with Master Robinton and call on him to stay with them; and being Harperweyr dragons to sing in the Masterharper's thoughts too.

oOoOo

Takula listened to the commentary relayed from dragons with a set look on HER face; and turned to Pilgra.

"Well he can't hurt anyone else" she said "Poor Salth! If HE has any children there, we need to bring them here so they can have a good set of parents with you and T'bor."

It was about the longest speech the child had ever made; and Pilgra hugged her.

"We'll do out best to find out, pet" she said "And if they want to come, we'll bring them."

oOoOo

There was news from the Southern continent in rather an unexpected form.

K'star of Fort Weyr flew in with a boy as a passenger on Green Ninth. The lad had a bronze firelizard with him and looked sullen.

R'gar greeted K'star with a nod of the head at the boy.

"No clutch at Fort?" he asked the Green Rider.

"It is my RIGHT to come to High Reaches!" the boy interrupted.

R'gar frowned.

"It is not, however, your right to interrupt and speak until spoken too, lad. I'll speak with you – AFTER I have finished talking with Ninth's Rider."

"Er, yes, Weyrlingmaster" said K'star. "I was wanting to ask, if I may, how's H'gey? M'ander and I had hoped to bring him on Search but then he Impressed anyway!"

R'gar grinned.

"On one crutch now, and often enough an alpenstock instead; doing fine. Brieth's well grown; and H'gey's one time betrothed is now K'iara and is his weyrmate."

"Excellent!" beamed K'star "Have you room for M'ander and me here if we put in for a transfer? The atmosphere here is so good, and we have made friends in High Reaches Weyr…."

"If you're prepared to adapt to our ways a pleasant and stable couple is always welcome" said R'gar. "I've heard much good about you from my weyrmate, T'lana, my son T'rin and his foster brother H'gey."

K'star's eyes widened.

"I didn't know you were related to everyone we know, sir!" he said "We want to be logicators like Weyrwoman T'lana but N'ton's a little wary of the idea."

"Oh, then you'll be doubly welcome" said R'gar "I'll tell T'bor; he'll make no difficulty about it if we all vouch for you; you just need to clear it with N'ton and put up with second best weyrs and a lot of dirt and dust while our miners convert the ones you choose to a doubled mated quarters."

"Whooh! I like THAT idea!" grinned K'star.

"And now tell me about your young passenger" said R'gar who felt that the boy had been kept kicking his heels long enough for the point to be made about interruptiong his elders and betters.

"A fishing boat picked him up on the wreck of a homemade boat" said K'star "And he demanded to be taken to the nearest Weyr."

R'gar elevated his eyebrow.

"Demanded?" he queried.

"I pick my words with care, Weyrlingmaster" said the Green Rider.

R'gar surveyed the lad.

"And a cheeky enough boy to butt in to conversation between two blooded Riders too. I take it N'ton didn't care for his attitude?"

The boy flushed angrily but held his tongue.

"Oh it's not that sir!" said K'star "The boy said he had Right to come to High Reaches, having been taken from it, not banished as such. His mother was a drudge here, taken South with his Brown Rider father."

"Ah" said R'gar "We've had some trouble from Southern Brown Riders before, trying to turn their sons into brats" he flicked a disapproving glance over the boy who scowled. R'gar asked him directly "I hope you're not a son of that creep P'ren, lad?"

The boy compressed his lips.

"No sir. My father is S'tarel."

"Hmm. Well, I've not heard of him, detrimentally or otherwise" growled R'gar "What's your name?"

"Dailin, sir" said the boy.

"Well, Dailin, remember that people at High Reaches are not so ill-mannered as to demand; courtesy is an expression of honour. If you come as a candidate, you rank with the other candidates: the lowest of the low. Neither Blood noe weyrbreeding counts to dragons; and nor does it count to us. What counts is those who have Craft Ranking or a useful skill to give to the Weyr. You made yourself a boat; are you interested in learning more from our Weyrwoodcrafter?"

"Take a craft? Like the COMMONS?" Dailin was scandalised.

R'gar's one eye narrowed.

"And THAT false and arrogant attitude will NOT be tolerated" he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Hold, Craft and Weyr need each other; and so will you learn in your lessons with the Weyrsingers. None of the three can exist in isolation; and they were set up by the Ancients with autonomy as EQUALS. It is the people of the time of your father who have deviated from the original charter. Live with it; or we'll send you right back South again."

Dailin paled beneath his tan.

"But – but there'll never be a clutch in Southern – I'd NEVER have the chance of Impression!"

"Nor will you unless you mend your attitude" said R'gar "Because we have plenty of candidates who can find the honour to rise to the challenge. Learn to live with honour amongst us and lose the arrogant and overbearing crackdust you've been taught. I'll ask Bronze Rider Weyrling R'enn to show you about; he was sired by a Southerner and is the fosterling of another Oldtimer. And you may think again about crafting; which we consider an honourable pursuit."

"Er…thank you sir" said Dailin, shocked, and having to adjust his preconceived ideas rapidly.

And there was not a lot else he might say.

"Sir, might I learn woodcraft from the Weyrwoodcrafter?" asked K'star "If our transfer is approved? I should like to, very much."

"Well if you're transferring here, to Blooded riders I answer to R'gar" said R'gar "And I shouldn't see why not; you should ask. H'llon is also a leading light amongst the logicators in addition to being Weyrwoodcrafter; you'll not be in his Wing however, only the biggest and strongest dragons get to fly in the Protective Wing."

"H'llon? The Weyrwoodcrafter's Impressed?" asked Dailin, forgetting to keep his tongue still until spoken to.

R'gar looked at him thoughtfully as he flushed and looked scared.

"Impetuous question asking I will pardon" he said "Yes, as it happens, he is. And he has respect for his status as Acting-Master as much as for being a blooded Bronze Rider counted for Rank as Flight-Leader since the Wing he leads is a select and elite band. And if you give him any crackdust, he'll also tan your hide for you. You've much to learn; and I hope you learn it or I reiterate, there will be no dragon for you because High Reaches nowadays permits the dragons a wide choice of candidates to choose from to get the best; not just the least worst as seems to have happened in times past. Including at Benden in my young day, so no Weyr has been innocent of that. We seek to rectify it; so that dragonfolk may legitimately hold their heads high in pride. Pride; not arrogance. A subtle but significant difference. And I think that there's enough to you Dailin, that I take the time and trouble to tell you this" he added kindly, patting the boy on the shoulder.

"Sir, I – I do want to be a dragonman. I'll do whatever I have to" said Dailin.

R'gar nodded at the note of sincerity in his voice.

"Good lad; watch, learn and understand" the Weyrlingmaster said. "Ah, here is R'enn; R'enn, this is Dailin who's from Southern. Show him about and explain things to him."

"Yes, Weyrlingmaster!" said R'enn, smartly; he had been summoned via Laranth bespeaking Narath and now he could see why. R'enn was sharp enough. "Come along, Candidate!" he added to Dailin.

R'gar was quite certain that R'enn and his friends would knock any corners of Dailin that needed knocking! As one of R'enn's friends was D'lon, one of the rejected children brought by D're that winter that seemed so long ago, Dailin would also learn a thing or two about how much – or rather how little – Dragons cared about minor disabilities where the spirit was what counted for more, should the boy dare to criticise H'llon's legless apprentice Radall, or Serelis and her wooden foot.

R'gar reflected that it was scarcely surprising, whatever astonished mutters there had been, that more than one of the fair of youngsters D're had brought had Impressed; he would not himself be surprised to find others with dragons before they were grown. After all, the courage to trust in the one-legged itinerant trader to toil up the mountain in winter was a fair indication of the level of courage and will that marked out a Dragonrider; as indeed did D're's own efforts in getting them there. D're was a worthy Bronze Rider.

oOoOo

Dailin was learning to reassess quite rapidly. He wore the hard coating of arrogance as much for protection as because of beliefs trained into him; but he was no fool.

His saving grace was also that he believed that dragons did not make mistakes; and so if given a wide choice a dragon chose the Holdless or the disables over the weyrbred there had to be a reason.

There was only one weyrbred youth standing for Mirrith's next clutch; the artistic Gwetor; and Dailin noted the boy's eagerness to take a craft. Gwetor's friend Sessel would stand; though the consensus was that Sessel was not yet mature enough; and stood as much as a support for Gwetor as any other reason. The other artist lad close in age was not yet Turned twelve. As the next oldest weyrbred boy Garald was also a craftsman, a Harper, and wanted to wait to stand with his younger brother Garvan 'like F'lar and F'nor' as they said.

It appeared that a majority of weyrcrafters were Impresses; and that there was a standing joke that it was how the Weyr prevented them from moving on elsewhere!

All the youngsters seemed eager to do what they might to help out and have assigned tasks; it was a way of accruing status! And of the nine boys waiting from a failure to Impress the previous clutch the senior weyrstaff certainly gave more respect to those who worked in some capacity – even the boy Linter who had assigned himself as personal drudge to Weyrlingmaster R'gar, explaining happily that the job had previously been done by the likes of Gold Rider T'lana when she was still pretending to be a boy, and Blue Rider Journeyman Harper T'rin, he being R'gar's foster son; and if he, Linter, Impresses then Sagarra would be old enough to take on the task for her father.

As drudging for R'gar mostly involved copying lessons and keeping teaching scrolls neat and feeding R'gar with klah regularly it was quite a privileged position; but R'gar liked Linter and his droll manner and found him modest enough not to presume, yet cheerful to have around. The much older boy too, Sekind, despite something of a speech impediment, had a great deal of status, working alongside Bronze Rider Weyrling B'mall to help T'bor with his record keeping, liaising with Pilgra's assistant Elena.

One apprenticed candidate few seemed to give much time of day to was Candidate Weavercraft Apprentice Rorik.

Dailin asked why.

"Heh" said R'enn, unconsciously copying one of the speech idiosyncrasies of T'rin, one of his idols "Rorik's a sneak and by it a bully, and tries to curry favour and suck up by attempting to get others into trouble. His father's a Master Weaver; and he encouraged that sort of thing. Which is not good! And Rorik's almost eighteen and not yet a journeyman and if he spent less time minding other folk's business and more time weaving he might have got his promotion before he came to us. And if he WAS a journeyman, we'd take him making censorious remarks you know; but he isn't, he's just an interference and R'gar and T'lana don't like it either. Ratting people up is frowned on, unless it's to stop something dangerous."

"Rather" agreed Dailin, who at least knew that much of the juvenile code. "Is it frowned upon to get one's retaliation in first?"

"Don't get caught" advised R'enn. "Get Linter and Janarek to help; they're good kids and fairly inventive. Or Carinn and Mallitta; they're good kids as good as boys; they're standing back for a turn or two before trying for Impression again. Malli helps B'mall a lot; he's her brother, you know, so's B'ron; Carinn helps him sometimes, 'cos even Carinn can't lose anything as big as an ovine, or a pile of manure."

There was much laughter amongst R'enn's other friends.

Apparently Carinn was famous for losing things.

Tales of High Reaches and the Logicators were themselves an education to Dailin; and in the end the boy went nervously to H'llon – which meant he acted as arrogantly as possible – to ask for an apprenticeship.

oOoOo

H'llon regarded the lad who looked down his nose and said that as it was considered proper to train for a craft he felt that woodcrafting might suit him the best.

"Well" said the Bronze Rider "It might suit YOU, laddie, but will you suit US?"

"I – I like working with wood and I'm good with my hands" said Dailin defiantly, squaring his shoulders "The Weyrlingmaster said I might approach you" he added fortuitously.

"Hmmm! R'gar wouldn't send me a stuck up ninny that you look at first sight to be" said H'llon "And the boy inside peeked out for a moment from that down-the-nose attitude that's rather offputting. High Reaches isn't a place to play politics, pull rank or pose about your birth; I neither know nor care what your birth may be. If you can show me that you want to work with wood, that's what interests me."

"I – I'm a candidate too" said Dailin.

"I assumed so" said H'llon "From somewhere to the South; apart from the fact that you are weyrbred in an Oldtimer Weyr and the child of a higher colour rider who only takes an offhand interest in you and that your mother has recently died, and that you know how to sail I can deduce nothing about you."

Dailin stared.

"How…..? I mean sir, please, how can you know so much? I have not told all that even to the Weyrlingmaster!"

"You are tanned and your hair bleached as of Igen, Ista, and theoretically Southern Weyr, all Oldtimer Weyrs. You have to you a swagger also typical of the weyrbred child of a high coloured Ruder in the Oldtimer tradition; it is a subtly different bearing to that of a child of a Lord Holder. But there is an uncertainty to you, engendered, I think, by your sire's offhand manner. Your clothes too have the mark of wear that a proud father with rank might dislike seeing if he took much notice of you; and there are excellent, but old, repairs. Recent repairs are amateurish and look like the work of a boy not many turns into being of Age. From that I deduce that you had a caring mother – or foster mother – who is no longer available. And I guess she died or you'd not have uprooted yourself to come here. Your hands have on them the calluses typical of rope handling; hence, you sail."

"That's amazing!" cried Dailin "It – it's all true; Dailla, mother, died; and S'tarel wouldn't take me anywhere for a clutch; he said we'd have our own eggs soon, before I was out of age, because of the Queen egg they took…..and then it was taken back. And – and he was bad tempered, like they all were; and I didn't see why I should miss trying for Impression. So I made a boat and sailed North. And here I am."

"Poor kid" said H'llon "Those Southern Dragonmen got themselves so addled they forgot how to be dragonmen. Our R'enn wasn't treated well by his father; and Z'kan brought Z'ira North – when she was still Zaira – to keep her from harm too."

Dailin was torn between loyalty and wanting to admit that he had been treated more kindly here, even with stern injunctions to mend his manners!

And when H'llon dropped an arm over his shoulder comfortingly he burst into tears; and H'llon drew him within for comfort and klah as he might have done had the boy been as young as Radall or Diccon!

R'enn had learned some woodcrafting; and was H'llon's weyrmate's fosterbrother; so the woodcrafter had a lot of sympathy for those bred if Southern sires!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

One of the things Dailin learned to respect was the Dragonrider oath – to protect and serve.

He learned about the Childhold and its acceptance of unwanted children. Several had come in over the past Turn, since the arrival of the exposed baby , Veralinne had given the Logicators the idea; several orphaned Holdless children, Varney and Risa, and Ibella and her brothers and little Grighri with the exposed spine had been among the first. Coll, dying of a disease of the blood, had come with his father who wanted the boy's last months to be as easy and pleasant as possible, and Finvor the carter made himself useful to the weyr. There had been several more newborns; a baby with filmy, unseeing eyes, a lad with a birthmark, and larger of limb on the side of the body that the mark was too: then there was the baby that had fits and was not expected to survive. There was an infant who was perfectly formed but tiny – he lay in one hand easily. The weyrfolk joked that he could easily fit on any other undersized dragon that hatched; it was not necessarily a defect! Some joked that he'd Impress the biggest Benden bred Bronze when he was old enough because it would be the funniest; and K'len had opened a book on what colour and what size of dragon the babe would Impress one day.

Next in age of those come to the Childhold was a little boy with a cleft lip; orphaned at three turns old his next kin had not wanted a child who was disfigured – indeed his parents had been shunned for keeping him instead of 'kindly' euthenasing him; and had probably died for want of neighbourly aid during sickness – so the signal had been put out.

Calla believed that she could reconstruct the lip, since weyrfolk had no superstitious aversion to surgery, to improve the child's ability to eat ans speak as well as for cosmetic reasons.

Two children of around five turns had been rejected for different reasons; one had the same spinal malfunction as Grighri though not so severe; but her parents could not cope with her extra needs as well as their other children and gave her up tearfully, promising to visit as often as they could. For such parents a promise of a ride dragonback to visit was made; it would be good flight practice for smokeless weyrlings. The other child, a little boy, had started to develop a hunched back and it had become visible enough to cause his parents embarrassment. Once he was away they intended to claim to others that he had died; and as T'lana grimly sais, but for the Weyr they'd probably have made sure that he did.

There was a big age gap to the next children; it was odd, but presumably the way it went, as the weyrfolk shrugged and said. A lad who was simple had no idea of consequences; his parents thought him a danger to himself. He was biddable enough; just inclined to wander off. Which, near the sea, in Tillek Main Hold was potentially dangerous as he loved water and would make for it when he might. They made the decision to make a clean break because he might only get confused if he half remembered them; it was easier for him, said the boy's father frankly as well as less distressing for them, to give him up entirely. And perhaps visiting Riders might, if they had time, give them news. Calla being inclined to the same opinion, that visiting parents would only confuse him, made sure that bulletins would be sent.

There were less places to wander in a Weyr, and the dragons all kept half an eye on the boy, for he had no fear of them and loved their beauty. They watched him and kept him safe in the lake.

Another lad whose parents could not cope was suffering, Calla said, from the same fatal illness that Coll Utul had; the parents could not bear to watch him suffer. The general consensus was that they were selfish porcines. Finvor took the lad under his wing, even knowing that it would ultimately double his grief; and the weyrfolk honoured him for it.

A little girl had been rejected for a spreading strawberry mark on her face, reducing her matrimonial prospects; and Sh'ranis took her under HER wing.

Another boy had fallen whilst herding caprines and avoiding an avalanche; his father had set the broken leg badly and it had healed shorter than the other, something Calla considered as unforgivable as the subsequent attitude that he was no good any more. In consultation with the lad she intended to re-break and stretch the leg for a better mend; but the Weyr would keep him unless he was desperate to return home.

With the shock of rejection that had been so unnecessary, had only proper care been given, the boy was resentful enough to swear never to return to his parents!

Another child of some twelve turns was a little girl who had been injured during threshing; jumping down at the wrong time, through ignorance, from the pile of wheat she had been stacking, she had been struck in the face by a flail. One eye had been completely ripped out and her cheek bone broken, leaving her blind one side and disfigured. Again with marriage prospects bleak, her parents had passed her to the Weyr; as well as to hide their ineptitude from neighbours.

The oldest lad sent in was sixteen. Hastal had broken his hips at sea, being a fisher lad, and left with a bad limp was considered useless. Technically he had come on Search – which was how Dailin had come to know him – but as nobody expected him to Impress he was really there to be cared for. Hastal was rude and obstreperous, and put his family down constantly for their rejection of him, all of which attitudes were understandable and almost accepted; but he was still rejecting help to overcome his anger, and it was not anticipated that he could Impress until he had done so!

Dailin sympathised; but when he tried to make friends had his head bitten off with a series of blistering seabred oaths.

"Warned you" said R'enn, not without sympathy. "He's gotta be broken to be built up; 'cos he isn't ready. Some people never are, I guess."

R'enn had shared his own story with Dailin; who had been able to empathise, for had his own father been so unscrupulous as P'ren he might have found himself in a similar situation! And he knew that equally he would have done what his father wanted to get his attention rather than follow what he knew to be right.

Dailin had never had any contact with the disabled and found it hard not to stare at those with disfigurements until told off for bullying and unkindness; which he was able to convince Y'lara, who had been doing the ticking off, that he had not intended. Harder for him to come to terms with was simple Lirkul; he listened to the boy's simplistic speech with horror.

A voice spoke quietly behind him as he froze.

"But the dragons love people like Lirkul and Camo at the Harper Hall" the voice said softly; it was T'lana. "They haven't a mean bone in their bodies. They just trust; and love. Lirkul's never going to do anything except fetch and carry but he can help weyrlings scrub dragonets; which he loves doing. And his loving heart has made him nicer than a lot of people, and that's a lesson to us all, hmmm?"

Dailin flushed.

"I – I suppose so. It makes me nervous."

"And some people are less honest about that than you are, and react with anger to cover their own fears. I suppose that they think it's catching or something" she pulled a face "People fear what they do not understand; and obvious deformity is one of those things. It's irrational and at the Weyr we find such attitudes hard to understand. Fearing people who are infected, like the epidemic of Moreta's time, is a reasonable fear, though the behaviour of some over that who should have known better was disgraceful. Fear of a non-catchable disability? That I can't understand."

"I guess when you put it like that, Weyrwoman, it sounds cowardly and pretty silly" said Dailin.

She smiled her sudden sunny smile.

"Good lad. I thought you had more maturity than many and would learn to get over it" she said.

oOoOo

Technically, Search was not on yet; but a few youngsters found their ways to the Weyr one way or another.

The Weyrpotter, Journeyman Iavell, requested the aid of his younger brother, who had just made Journeyman, and at seventeen turns was justly proud of it. Iavel was himself a logicator; and had high hopes of his brother Impressing being within age. And a young Green Rider, S'eta was apprenticed under Iavell; and the senior journeyman thought she might suit his brother very well indeed if he might bring the pair together! S'eta was a nice girl and hard working too; Iavell saw no reason she would not be a confirmed Journeyman too in a few turns. She was of an age with his brother Shoritty, and if she was not quite so talented as he, as the daughter of a Pottercraft Master she was certainly imaginative and accomplished at her work. It had been one of her ideas to mould one of F'nor's grubs out of clay and attach it to the bottom of a mug to be revealed as the last drops of klah went! Having caught several dragonriders dropping in to make orders and staying for klah. Iavell had taken several orders for more grub-in-a-mug mugs after they had laughed off embarrassed shock! It was a fashion that was there to stay!

Shoritty was as surprised as anyone and laughed loud and long when his brother played the same trick on him. He was an outgoing young man, of enquiring mind and with the swift imagination to fit in readily with the logicators, of whom hs brother had written to him; and son a book was opened on whether it would be a Bronze for him or a Brown.

S'eta certainly found Shoritty attractive; and they readily sparked design ideas off each other. Shoritty too was willing and ready to make items for sale for the Weyr's childhold; and both brothers were more than willing to try out older children from it for apprenticeships!

oOoOo

Fidonas, the young caprine herder with the ill healed leg, graduated naturally towards the farmercrafters; and Journeyman Teleman was glad of another apprentice who had some knowledge of farming with a little husbandry to add to it. Green Riders J'esha and J'arla largely oversaw the herdbeasts and runners, with Shuba and Joana in charge of their main care with successive weyr children at their beck and call: but Teleman was expanding his horizons! It was his opinion – which received both interest and general agreement from many weyrfolk – that beastcrafting ought to be a specialisation of an overall Farmercraft, because the two should work together to improve farming techniques alongside herding. The herders at High Reaches certainly worked quite happily with Teleman; and generally acknowledged his lead.

Simple Lirkul too worked with the farmers; he liked to take the animals to drink. He had to be watches; but he loved animals and could be trusted to be gentle.

Tarine, the girl who had suffered the flail accident, was offered the chance of apprenticeship in farmercraft or anything else she wished; but though she did such sundry chores as she was set she would do not more. Indeed she did as little as possible whilst avoiding getting into trouble for laziness. Too young to care much about marriage, she saw the accident as the best thing that had ever happened to her, for she could foresee shirking her way through weyr life, fed whether she worked hard or no, since less was required of her than in a life always on the edge of starvation as in the life of a cotholder. The assumption that she might shirk was a false one as she found out when she tried skiving entirely; and she spent several days on bread and water until she started doing her tasks properly. Even so she still managed to get away with doing much less than she had been accustomed to have to do in the cot where she was born!

Of the rest, of those fit enough and old enough to work, only Tuada of the birthmark was close to apprenticeship in age; and she gravitated after settling in to listen to the music of the Harperweyr.

When she joined in a piece of sung music, L'gal stopped dead in mid song and pointed at Sh'ranis.

"Weyrwoman, why isn't your fosterling formally apprentices with us?" he demanded.

"She hasn't asked to be" said Sh'ranis, mildly "And I'll not force her if she prefers to keep it as a hobby. Tuada, do you want to be a Harper?"

Tuada's eyes widened.

"And sing and make music all day? But – but they'll laugh at me!"

"Heh" said T'rin "Any fool can have a pretty face; and old age steals that anyway. Only the few have a beautiful voice and with training that will stay with you most of your life if you take care of it. Anyway, Acting-Master L'gal's no portrait to look at and we still manage not to laugh at him."

"Cheeky" said L'gal lazily; for he was actually a very handsome young man! "Tuada, you've a birthmark. It's the way things are. WE won't even see it after a sevenday or so. It would be a crime to waste a pure voice, unconsciously correct breathing and perfect pitch. Please join us; we don't bite and there's others as young as you."

"And younger" said T'rin dryly, thinking of K'lana.

"Well….. I – I want music" said Tuada.

"That's settled then apprentice" said L'gal.

And Tuada was amazed that her birthmark made no difference at all to the other apprentices!

oOoOo

No-one expected either Coll or Belry to do any work of course; they helped Finvor when they could. Coll had almost a new lease of life with rest and good food and warmth; but the end would be inevitable. Finvor was just glad that his son could have fun and even play sometimes to brighten up what time he had left, and was permitted the whole collection of books in the Harperweyr to read, as well as other story scrolls sundry Riders loaned the little boy. Both of the boys were prone to catch any infection going; the healthiness of the weyrfolk on the whole was at least a respite from coughs and colds prevalent in both Holds and Holdless caverns, so that alleviated suffering in one respect at least. However the pains in the children's joints and where something was growing inside them was hard for Finvor to bear to watch; indeed, all the weyr found it hard for both boys tried hard to make as light as they could of their sickness.

Coll spoke to his father.

"Belry and me, we decided if the pain gets too bad, we'd both ask a dragon to take us _Between_ together; it's more a weyr way to do it than overdosing on Fellis, and Melth said he would take us. Then we could face it together."

Tears stood in Finvor's eyes.

"They are good to us here, t'be sure" he said "And it must be a quick enough way to go. And I'll not be persuading you to stay afther that you're ready."

Coll smiled, rather sadly.

"We're not ready yet, da; we still enjoy what life we get and they're happy to let us. Not like Belry's folks who made him feel in the way."

"Burnt firestone that lot" said Finvor's contemptuous comment.

"Yeah. You're quality, da; quality" said Coll.

oOoOo

Chavel and Yanas both arrived together in the Mulgan train, and with a girl called Geiona.

"Sure, and this ghirlie is all at a loose end now her idiot faither's finally drunk hisself into _Between_!" explained Morrity Mulgan. "Looked afther the sad old turd she has – which was more'n he deserved f'sure, and not wantin' t'be a lovin' wench asked if we'd hire her on; but t'my way o' thinkin' merry lass like her might be a foine weyrwoman like our own Mir – M'ielle."

"If you'd have me and it's not just an excuse to get drudges" said Geiona casting a suspicious glance at a young woman covered in soot and grease and swearing sulphurously at a pile of flamethrowers.

Pilgra followed her gaze and grinned.

"Oh nobody has a touch with flamethrowers like Queenrider T'lana over there; and she swears enough at them but moans if anyone else touches them. Look, these are some of the weyrlings come to help her; it takes time to finish oiling dragonets to be back on duty for chores" a number of girls and boys with enthusiastic dragonets flying – rather clumsily – overhead trooped over to T'lana; and meekly took orders.

"OH!" said Geiona.

"Things aren't always as they seem" said Pilgra gently. "We ALL work hard; even Queenriders do work some would see as drudgework."

"Well if the work is apportioned fairly I've no complaint to work as hard as any" said Geiona "And I've no objection if the work the top people do is headwork more than cleaning work neither. But I guess if you Queenriders aren't too fancy to do what has to be done I'm going to like it here."

"Glad it meets with your approval" murmured Pilgra; but her gentle irony was lost on the girl who was busy looking around. Morrity picked it up, winced and grinned at the effervescent Weyrwoman.

"Thought I'd put her under the protection of our M'ielle if it's all the same to you, Weyrwoman?" he suggested.

"Excellent; thanks Morrity" said Pilgra. M'ielle would make sure the girl did not irritate too many people with bluntness; though she,Pilgra, should be the last to complain of bluntness! "Are you boys travelling with the Mulgans or are you candidates?" she turned her attention to the youths.

The smaller nodded to the last.

"We hope to be candidates, Weyrwoman; I'm Chavel and this is my brother Yanas" he said "We're twins; but he was born second and he's…slow. He ain't stupid; he's kinda…like he's younger, y'know? And they make fun of him at the Trader Hall so I say, right, dragons don't care how clever you are if you're good people, let's go to the Weyr. So we go to Telgar Weyr and they laugh and say they don't want no dummies – which he ain't anywise, though I guess dragons don't care – and they say try High Reaches where they like incompetents. So we thought, y'know, can't hurt. So are you going to throw us out?" he asked belligerently.

Pilgra had frowned.

"Telgar again" she muttered "T'bor is going to bust a vessel….. Chavel, Yanas, we do not believe in the word 'incompetent'; we just think that some people are more able in some respects than others. We may be full of what SOME people call cranks and cripples; but our cranks and cripples have a better injury record than any other Weyr and we have it on the authority of those who walk Sweep that we cover better than most other weyrs too. You are both welcome whether you Impress or no; traders are always an asset and if Yanas is less good with figures I am certain he has his own skills" she added firmly.

"Can we get to ride on dragons?" asked Yanas, peering about in delighted awe.

"Certainly you will" said Pilgra "If you Impress on your own; if not, trader lads will he a welcome addition at our craft stall that we run to pay for the orphans, crippled children and unwanted babies we care for here."

Chavel's face split into a big smile.

"Reckon we're lucky to be sent on rather than be with them snot-nosed old farts at Telgar!" he said.

"Now as a Queenrider I can't possibly be seen to agree with that assessment of another Weyr!" said Pilgra sternly "But I think you are indeed a lot better off with us."

Chavel grinned again.

He knew about diplomacy. And he knew when someone disliked another.

And Pilgra was fuming that Telgar had once again spoken so disparagingly of another Weyr to commons.


	8. Chapter 8

_Hi Queen of the Jungle, Thanks for the review, did you mean to disable private messaging? Sometimes you get logistical hiccups like two riders with similar names - people just have to be careful! [the dragons know which is which]. As for Shoritty, leaving the r in helps it to be less scatological_**  
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**Chapter 8**

Geiona quickly got to meet the two other female candidates to date; Carlinna, one of the weyr artists, recently made journeyman; and Aderina. Carlinna had been told off by T'lana to look after Aderina, and had heard the weyrbred girl's story from her. As Carlinna had said,

"Posing and posturing is all some girls have, I suppose. I guess T'rin would have some clever and utterly coarse way of putting it; so let's not ask him. It might make us laugh at them too much and it's unkind to mock the afflicted."

Aderina had laughed.

Geiona took in the artist journeyman knots on one girl and the alpine star and healer apprentice knots on the other – Aderina had elected to learn healing and had proved a natural at abseiling, something that had gained her friends amongst the Impressed – and realised that these girls were no decorative ninnies. Aderina's alpine star was very new but it still counted; she had managed to perform some acrobatics to hang head down in a narrow gorge to get face and hands near a frightened child who had fallen when chasing an errant caprine. EverCliff Hold was grateful and insisted that the brave acrobatics of the rescuer had been instrumental in preventing the little girl from panicking.

Geiona was impressed.

"I've no craft" she said defensively "I've been caring for my father until he died."

"That's a craft of itself" said Carlinna; and at murmurs of sympathy, Geiona dashed away tears.

"He killed himself slowly with drink, but he was my father and I loved him" she said defiantly.

"Then you're LUCKY" said Aderina fiercely "My father wouldn't even have recognised me if he came face to face with me – there! So high and mighty as being a Blue Rider, Benden style, can't see the child of a lower cavern wench. And here even BRONZE Riders pass time of day with any kiddie that wants attention. You loved him – you remember the good times before he got bad!"

Geiona was much struck by this and reached out to embrace Aderina.

"THANK you" she said "I – I've always made excuses for him; been a bit ashamed of him as well as loving him; but he never EVER suggested I work as a loving wench to buy him drink" she grinned "I used to steal it instead."

If Aderina and Carlinna were a little shocked they managed not to show it; Carlinna was used to tales of the plights of the Holdless where theft was often the only way to eat; and Aderina had made mistakes enough to learn to be tolerant towards the less conventional behaviour of others.

"Stealing drink or marks?" asked Carlinna, with unfeigned interest.

Geiona grinned.

"Both. Drink for him if I could; and food for me. I used to pose as assistant Headwoman of a Hold and order loads of stuff, then tell them the steward would pay presently. And then I would just pick up what I could carry away while they went to wait for the marks that never came. So they got most of it back of course; but if you ask for half a dozen bottle you get funny looks. You ask for half a dozen crates of bottle and it's all kiss-my-hand my lady" she laughed.

"Enterprising" said Carlinna "You must tell that to the logicators; we solve crimes – real crimes, not petty theft – and we collect strange quirks of human nature to help us do so."

"The big lie always works" grinned Geiona "Tell me about the logicators."

Once enrolled in the logicators, Geiona became accepted entirely by the Weyr; and found herself co-opted to work with Voll, visiting Holdless caverns until the clutch should be laid.

oOoOo

Once Miririth clutched, candidates started coming in, in earnest. There were only twenty four eggs, a lower number than Mirrith's usual average, but there had been two recent clutches.

"With four healthy adult Queens they can afford not to have to lay as many each" said Pilgra.

"Need to keep laying though" commented T'lana "I've run assessment of H'llon's calculations; and he's right. He's taken them to Master Starsmith Wansor."

H'llon had feared a long Pass might follow the Long Interval; and had run his own orbital mechanics calculations learned from Wansor, calculating that the change in trajectory may have been caused by the pull of a large and not easily discovered body well out in the system.

It was not to be a Long Pass; but what he had discovered was almost as bad.

The Pass would end after fifty turns of Threadfall, but H'llon had projected his calculations further. After a respite of three turns, the path of the Red Star would bring it within distance for a second Pass. H'llon predicted Fall would be considerably lighter in the second fifty year Pass, or rather, each Threadfall would last less long and might see less density of Thread for the greater distance between Pern and its red nemesis. Thread would however still fall.

T'lana had checked his results and insisted he take them to Wansor too, before telling T'bor; and then their own Weyrleader could break it to F'lar if Wansor agreed.

Wansor promptly went looking for the unseen body that had been responsible for other perturbations H'llon had used to undertake his calculations and postulated a near stellar mass in the outer system. A distant object would not cause such drastic alteration of the course of the Red Star very often but could account for a previous Long Interval; and too for various factors like Thread falling out of pattern as it had done, baffling F'lar when he tried to use old Threadfall charts. Wansor soberly, and reluctantly, endorsed H'llon's calculations.

oOoOo

When F'lar looked over the calculations and diagrams H'llon had thoughtfully drawn he buried his face in his hands.

"That's all we need" he groaned "Not only can we not destroy Thread at source, it's going to last longer than ever we thought. Will we all go insane like T'kul and T'ron?"

"No" said T'bor "At least, Master Robinton might to hear a sentence like that put together. You and I will probably be long dead by the time of the next Interval; but if we train our successors to be as flexible and adaptable as we are, they won't be caught, like our least favourite Oldtimers, with their trousers down and their wits and manhood left _Between_".

F'lar grinned.

"Coarse" he said. "And that's not the way Master Robinton – or Sebell – would have put it either I wager!"

T'bor shrugged.

"Maybe not; you must blame our Harperweyr for a way with words and a direct way of putting things" he said cheerfully "Robinton would appreciate the simile. And at least we can be prepared for this; and it WILL be lighter. It'll give the later Riders more time to adapt to doing things other than fighting Thread."

"I thought High Reaches already did" said F'lar dryly.

"We have blackdust, crackdust all winter; which gives us more leisure than Weyrs with less cranky weather. Most Falls, anyhow. So we do rescue work instead; and as well in summer, but it's the winter and spring we're needed most. Oh were you meaning the logicators? Well most Riders most places have hobbies. One of the rewards for danger is a higher general level of leisure than most Holderfolk."

"Keep talking fast, T'bor, keep talking fast" chuckled F'lar. "Your people put in a lot of time doing good things when other folk would prefer to just relax."

T'bor shrugged.

"A change is as good as a rest. I've never noticed the logicators failing to learn their patterns or be out of step practising. Walk-throughs. Actually I would say they are the ones with the most acute perceptions of infinitesimal faults, and the best memories for learning new formations."

"Interesting" said F'lar. "Yes, those who play chess or dragon poker often pick things up quicker, whether it's the kind of mind that chooses such things or whether such hobbies sharben the acuities I couldn't begin to guess. I don't think we should release this information as yet however" he tapped H'llon's document "But the Harpers must know."

T'bor nodded.

"Wait until Raid, Sifer, Sangel and – I have to include him, T'lana's opinion despite – Groghe have joined their ancestors" he said "I sent T'rin to talk to Masterharper Sebell, T'rin couldn't do the calculations but he can follow a lot of it."

F'lar nodded.

"Good, Master Sebell will see anyone he feels has a need to know, is discreet and can handle being told. Like Jaxom. I'll let the other Weyrs know."

T'bor gave a rather wintry smile.

"What will you wager R'mart snorts, calls it nonsense and says what do you expect from cranks and cripples but crackdust and scaremongering?"

F'lar gave him a very straight look.

"I hope you and R'mart have never quarrelled in public?" he asked.

"We never quarrel at all, Benden: we make it our business to avoid each other assiduously. He DOES write snide letters occasionally; and he DOES permit his Riders to comment to the commons about us. WE don't care; we think it enhances our reputation rather than otherwise."

F'lar pulled a face.

"Well just carry one avoiding him" he advised. "It'll be hard though; we need a Weyrleaders' meeting."

"I'll sit as far away as I can from the old fool without being opposite him" shrugged T'bor "Waste it being Fanna that died; we'd have missed Bedella less. She mucks with R'mart's head almost as much as Kylara mucked with mine."

"That's a matter of opinion best not expressed of course" warned F'lar.

"Of course, Benden" said T'bor with a nod.

"As to R'mart's comments, " went on F'lar, "I'd not take you up on that for I'd lose. Which is why I'm going to get the calculations presented by Wansor. I hope it won't offent the sensibilities of your overly clever woodcrafter?"

"Not in the least. H'llon hates politics but he does understand the NEED for them" grinned T'bor. "He's a modest lad; being acclaimed for the calculations is not what he's after. It's warning the Weyrs and later the commons that he's interested in. He came up with using a natural Weyr we found in the East as a spare Weyr, to relieve any Weyr that needs aid through tiredness or injury."

"To serve all Weyrs?" F'lar asked quickly "That might work…. No Weyrleader likes to call in others and some have more false pride over that than others. If the Weyr is there to boost numbers anyway…. When we have the meeting, I'll prepare the ground by proposing a need for reinforcements and you put forward this Weyr you found."

T'bor nodded.

"We thought to send Queenrider Z'ira there when her Queen is grown; and H'llon is her weyrmate" he said. "He's steady and would make an excellent Weyrleader."

"How many Queens do you have?" asked F'lar.

"Four adult, three juvenile" said T'bor, promptly "But one juvenile is a sport, no larger than a Green her age so she doesn't really count I suppose."

"It's still a lot" said F'lar.

"Dragons are supposed to breed more towards the beginning of a Pass; but they are influenced by the belief structure of their Riders and senior Bronzes. Nemorth had Jora in her head and R'gul in her ear. OUR Queens have been listening to H'llon worrying about a long Pass this turn since. And now he's done the calculations after making all the observations, it's likely our numbers will continue to grow. I aim for a full Weyr of five to six hundred dragons like the records tell us about; and if you believe the calculations and so does Lessa, Ramoth will do so too."

"Ramoth won't permit more then two junior Queens unfortunately" said F'lar, dryly.

"MMmmm" said T'bor, who secretly thought Lessa's opinion of other Weyrwomen might colour the ideas of her Queen more than any natural prejudice on Ramoth's part.

A meeting was agreed upon, which had been the main idea and T'bor withdrew satisfied.

oOoOo

Naturally, the other Weyrleaders were not happy to hear this news! T'bor however had already chatted informally to G'narish of Igen – with whom he had struck up a close friendship since one of Igen's Riders had met Lady Petrilla in the Holdless cavern – and with N'ton. N'ton was a little in awe of the older Weyrleader and would have secretly liked to have led his Weyr to be as radical as High Reaches; but dared not antagonise his own older Riders. N'ton had however attended the ideas exchange, and had at least a passing knowledge of mathematics, and enough understanding to realise that Bronze Rider H'llon left him far behind.

"Does it make your head ache, T'bor?" he asked.

T'bor grinned.

"Like drinking a crate of half sour Tillek red from a bad year when you surface the next morning!" he confessed. N'ton laughed sympathetically.

"Well I suppose that so long as there are people who do understand, that's all that matters" he said.

"Oh yes; and they work out Threadfall charts accurate to the minute too" said T'bor mournfully reflecting that he could never manage to come close to that skill. "It saves us a bit though; we go _Between_ to one hundred heartbeats before Fall starts in our territory, using the sun or moons for accurate timing. And they work that out too."

"Clever" said N'ton "And your redheaded Weyrwoman who does all the mathematics also talks to dragons, doesn't she, which must make the visualisations easier?" he tried not to sound envious.

"Yes, it's very useful" said T'bor, equally trying not to sound smug and succeeding no better than the younger Weyrleader.

They exchanged a look; and grinned suddenly at each other!

oOoOo

The meeting involved a lot of shouting. R'mart, even with Wansor's say so, did not want to accept such a thing; D'ram, now representing Southern, was dismayed and G'dened was shocked. The younger Weyrleader had hoped to see the end of the Pass and a long retirement.

"We need to make the best of it" said G'narish practically. "There's a lot in society that's really quite broken; having an extra Pass gives us the opportunity to interfere more while the Commons still need us and can't conveniently forget their debt to dragonkind again."

"We can't interfere with autonomy!" said N'ton, shocked.

"Oh get real, N'ton" said G'narish "It needs subtlety. Those of us with good Lords Holders have less problems; and at least we can talk to them about the things that are wrong. You have Groghe; who's opinionated but at least a fardling good Holder who doesn't see Holdlessness as the only punishment for people who are awkward to deal with. And Jaxom, who's a Rider himself and a forward thinking youth. And Sangel will die sooner rather than later."

"Hear hear" said T'bor "We're lucky in the Reaches: all our Lords have enough between the ears to do their jobs well. And we don't have to worry about people like Nessel of Crom….."

"T'bor!" F'lar snapped. He could do without T'bor needling R'mart.

"Or as G'narish mentioned, Sangel for that matter" N'ton inserted the comment smoothly of the less easy Lord Beholden to Fort Weyr. "I dislike interfering. It's also forbidden."

"Quite" said F'lar with half a glance at G'narish.

"Not if you're invited to voice opinion" said G'narish, brightly.

"Weyr, Craft and Hold must act together in pursuit of that which is a threat to all Pern" said T'bor sententiously, mimicking H'llon at his most didactic.

"Absolutely!" said G'narish.

"I agree" said G'dened. "Autonomy is all very well, but when problems extend beyond borders there must be a broader policy."

N'ton just nodded; that made sense.

"And personal relations forged between Masters, Lords and Weyrleaders are all very well," said T'bor, "but we should get the Harpers to draft extensions to the Charter to deal with the likes of Thella and Fax. I hate to say this, but the Ancients were really rather naïve; they expected most people to WANT to do their duty and stay at home and out of trouble."

"It's never been done before" said R'mart.

"Nor had coming four hundred turns through time" said F'lar "But you and the others had the courage to rise to that challenge."

He almost choked as T'bor asked Orth to relay via Mnementh that F'lar was as cunning as a sack full of tunnel snakes.

R'mart insisted on taking a copy of the orbital calculations of course.

"As if he could understand it any better than we do" muttered T'bor to N'ton "Or encourage any of his people to learn enough to do so!"

"And he'll doubtless claim that because HE can't understand it that it proves nothing" sighed N'ton. "Well, if Telgar's caught hopping, we'll just have to cover."

"He'll be gone as Weyrleader long since" said T'bor "If not dead. I'm not bothered; once Bedella goes it'll be different."

"Unless her successor is as bad" said N'ton, dryly. "Time alone will show."

T'bor nodded.

It was all in the future. There was plenty of time to prepare.

With six hundred dragons High Reaches could, if necessary, cover Crom or Telgat as well as its own territory, especially with shorter Falls.

HE had no doubt that H'llon was correct!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

M'kel brought in a small boy from High Reaches Hold, who was scarcely within age, and deposited him with those candidates from the previous time, entrusting the child to the care of the cheerful and gregarious Linter. Linter was awaiting his third clutch and hoping against hope to be lucky this time.

"Nelon's a weavercrafter" M'kel told R'gar "He's escaping from Rorik's Master father. Seems the kid made an unwise comment about this Master Varik being unable to boast of his son's Impression since the dragons weren't any more Impressed by the little interference than anyone else. I paraphrase. The child was about to suffer an excess of retribution."

"Hmmm yes, especially since I wager it was more forcefully and childishly put" said R'gar. "Nobody likes a sneak or a sanctimonious prig. I have some urges to strangle Rorik myself. Does Nelon not mind that Rorik is here?"

"Not once I explained to him that we took no crackdust from sneaks" said M'kel "And warned him not to haze Rorik too much for I'd be down on him like an avalanche even if you weren't, which you would be as your blind eye knows mischief being plotted being able to turn inward."

"M'kel!"

"Well they all half believe that, you know, R'gar" the Blue Rider grinned. "I did too as one of your weyrlings."

R'gar chuckled.

"I suppose it does no harm. Is he actually in age?"

"Well he will be by the time of the hatching" M'kel shrugged. "I thought he might go off to Rivenhill Weaverhall if he fails to Impress, and come back in a hatching or two."

R'gar nodded.

"Clever thought; he'd not be much older than Amrys and her scallywag friends. And as she and Sagarra write via firelizard at least once a sevenday he'd be more or less known to her and she to him. I'll get Sagarra to talk to him."

oOo

Rorik, predictably, tried to push Nelon around, which attempt was nipped in the bud by Sekind, whose speech impediment had been improved with speaking exercises. Moreover, after having mended a cleft lip, Calla had asked the boy if she should tackle his cleft palate.

He had been most eager!

It had not been so easy nor as fully successful as Bretal's lip; but Sekind had noticed a difference and it had given him a lot of confidence and the ability to stand up to a loudmouth like Rorik.

Rorik got himself further in trouble when he tried to push Shoritty around and told the new candidate that he'd be in trouble for messing around with an Impressed Green Rider.

Shoritty turned to pointedly display his Journeyman's knots and damned Rorik's insolence fully and comprehensively for interfering between Journeyman and Apprentice of the same craft, for since when had Potter business had anything to do with weavers, and especially not some scrubby apprentice weaver brat.

Rorik was actually almost subdued – and apologised to the surprise of all.

oOoOo

A candidate who was impossible to subdue was Tanaish. The boy had power enough as picked up by the Blue Rider who had Searched him; and he walked sweep without any sign of nervousness, let alone fear.

He was also dirty and considered by his fellows to be terminally stupid.

The other candidates complained of his smell and lack of washing; his flat refusal to bathe involved part superstition over frequent bathing sapping the strength and mostly refusal to be naked in front of others.

"Look, if you're really a girl, they don't mind that here, you know" said Sekind, his speech mostly quite clear now. "And if there's something out of the ordinary, I guess we're man enough to deal with our surprise. If you have a growth or- or anything."

"There's nothing wrong with me!" declared Tanaish angrily. "How dare you suggest it? how dare you suggest I'm a brat not a boy?"

Sekind was taken aback at the other boy's fury.

"Just trying to reassure you that you have nothing to fear if you had anything to hide" he said.

"Nudity is filthy!" declared Tanaish.

"Not as filthy as you" said Rorik bluntly, his bunk being next to that of Tanaish.

"Agreed" said Shoritty. "Either you bathe every day – and as you're a prude, you can fardling well get up ten minutes before the rest of us to do it then – or we'll bathe you. And you'll not enjoy that because we shan't only see your nakedness, we'll scrub it."

Tanaish pointed a finger.

"Pervert! Boy-lover!" he howled.

Shoritty laughed.

"What a little idiot you are" he said lazily "Go NOW and bath and you won't have to be scrubbed. And change your underlinen too: I wager it can stand up on its own. If you're short of kit, the Weyr will provide, you know: and any one of us will lend you breechcloths in the meantime."

Tanaish went off; and came back in short order with a tidemark on his face and still smelling, to Rorik's exclamation of disgust.

Shoritty pursed his lips.

"If you call THAT bathing, the rest of us do not" he said "Yanas, Chavel, Sekind, give me a hand. The rest of you do NOT need to be spectators; we'll save that as a punishment if he offends again."

It is doubtful if Tanaish had ever been so clean since he was born; and he did not appreciate it, howling dismally.

"Just keep clean now and we shan't have to do it again" said Shoritty shortly "We didn't enjoy the process either believe me."

The problem with Tanaish was that he seemed to have no concept of the idea of clean; or rather not to realise when he was dirty. Even after walking sweep – where his stoicism was praised by R'gar – he protested when the Weyrlingmaster told the youngsters who had helped to cut along and bathe.

"I'm not dirty sir!" he declared.

R'gar looked at him in disbelief.

"You've walked sweep. You – like all of us – reek of agenothree and sweat. Of course you're dirty. All of us are. You need to bathe" he said.

"I do not!" protested Tanaish.

"You DO. And, lad, you will; or you'll be bathed, believe me!" R'gar was taken aback.

"He always says he isn't dirty, sir" volunteered Rorik. R'gar was inclined to ignore Rorik as a troublemaker but the other boys were nodding agreement and murmuring assent. Loath themselves to sneak, they had the fair-mindedness to back Rorik up over a real problem when the Weyrlingmaster looked sceptical.

"Bathe or be bathed" R'gar reiterated.

Tanaish was forcibly bathed again; and this time, as threatened, with an audience. And when R'gar made inspection he gazed on the untidy muddle that was Tanaish's space with horror and distaste.

There were soiled clothes on the floor by the cot, the covers of which were thrown on any old how, and in the boy's press clean and dirty linen were mixed.

"Boy, is this the squalor you live in at home? Have you no women in the house to wash for you? And to teach you how to keep yourself clean?" demanded the Weyrlingmaster.

Tanaish goggled at him.

"I don't live in no squalor, I live in a cothold" he said "I don't know what a squalor is. My parents live there too."

"Squalor means filth, boy, and your way of living is filthy!" said R'gar "Dirty clothes in with clean ones? These clean ones you were issued with will have to be rewashed! Scorch it, boy, the dirty linen basket is at the end of the dormitory, are you too lazy to take your dirties to put in it?"

"Well they ain't fallen apart ye, there's nuthin' wrong with them, is there?" said Tanaish "Why should I let anyone steal them puttin' them in that basket some females take away?"

"Boy, are you trying to be funny?" demanded R'gar. "Fog, Fall and Fish, I see you're not!" he used the now common High Reaches oath since the fish storm. "Nobody will steal your clothes; they'll come back clean for you to put away, returned in the clean linen basket! Not falling apart? You surely don't wear your clothes day after day until they fall apart?"

"Aye, why not?" said Tanaish, confused.

"Why not? Because it's dirty! You will smell! You WILL change your habits or be sent home; we'll have no disease risks in the Weyr caused by any dirty little boy!"

"I've never been ill in my life sir!" Tanaish protested.

"No I wager you haven't; you'd kill any honest germs that got on your filthy body" said R'gar in exasperation. "But you harbour disease even if it daren't attack you! Shoritty, you've seniority as Journeyman; see he baths daily or he's out!"

"Sir" said Shoritty with grim satisfaction.

"But I'm not dirty!" claimed Tanaish; and nothing seemed likely to convince him from that standpoint.

It was difficult.

In all other respects the boy was willing, if unhandy; and many lads his age could be clumsy and it was not something to hold against him. But dirtiness could not be tolerated.

In the end Shoritty had to resort to threats to get the female candidates to watch Tanaish being bathed to get him to wash every morning, rather unwillingly and under supervision; and Rorik took over changing the boy's dirty linen nightly and putting it in the basket.

"Load o' bullies you" complained Tanaish.

"You don't even KNOW what bullying is" said little Nelon scornfully "If we were bullying you we'd make you walk up and down between us naked while we all scrubbed you till you were red raw. THAT'D be bullying and I've seen big boys do that sort of thing too, to kids as weren't up to scratch."

"Hmm, not very good discipline in the High Reaches Hold weaverhall then" said Shoritty "Reckon the masters there are incompetent."

"They are" said Nelon quickly before Rorik could comment.

"Potters didn't ought to interfere with Weavercraft" the older weaver apprentice interposed, throwing back Shoritty's own words.

"Just passing an opinion, laddie; just passing an opinion" said Shoritty, lazily. "Running the gauntlet is far too extreme for this poor silly prune; and it WOULD be bullying to resort to it. But for the sake of the rest of us, Tanaish, you have to conform to normal standards."

"Believe me" said another lad, who had arrived in the last day or two, "I've lived Holdless the last two turns, and there are plenty of Holdless for whom clean water enough for washing is something of a problem, and many of them would be disgusted by you, Tanaish. You are a THING."

"How come you've been Holdless?" asked Shoritty in interest "You're well spoken."

The boy Nilamon shrugged.

"I'm a distant cousin of a Holder whose methods I didn't like and I left before he could throw me out" said Nilamon "And now I get here to find two of his sons Impressed to escape home and his youngest daughter waiting to be old enough to be a candidate and the old fool deposed into the bargain for being stupid enough to hack off the Weyr!"

"From Two-Springs were you?" asked Sekind.

"Oh, it's that obvious is it?" grinned Nilamon.

"Yeah" said Lister "B'ron's a fardling good sort, you know, and I like Malitta too, and B'mall's pretty decent. He was Holder, actually, briefly, until he Impressed in the tiers."

"Well that leaves Matrul, and he's VERY different to his brothers" said Nilamon "So I'm glad I didn't go back."

"Heh, HE'S not Holder" said Sekind. "Id's – It's – gone to a steward for now, from Lord Deckter."

"Well I guess that's got to be better for the people there" said Nilamon. "Matrul has morals and manners filthier than Tanaish's body."

"I'm NOT dirty!" Tanaish protested.

"Oh SHUT it!" it was a chorus!

oOoOo

Teffie arrived in the Weyr as a passenger of K'star's Ninth; K'star and M'ander had agreed to time their transfer to High Reaches to bring K'iara's elder sister to stand as a candidate.

K'iara ran out to hug her sister.

"Oh I am glad you decided to come!" she said "I'll take you to the candidates' barracks and introduce you to the other girls there."

"And you can show me around too" said Teffie. "It's bigger than Fort Weyr, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's quite a big Weyr" said K'iara "We have a wide region to cover I guess."

"It's really exciting. It'll be nice to get to know you now you're mostly grown up, Kitiara."

K'iara frowned.

"K'iara" she said sharply.

"What? Why have you decided on so ridiculous a shortening to your pretty name?" said Teffie.

"Because it's the honourific shortening that a dragonrider is entitled to, candidate; and if you start to call Rider names ridiculous you won't half catch it" said K'iara, bristling. "And I won't save your tail either because it disrespects the fact that we've been chosen by dragonkind."

Taffie looked shocked.

"You contract GIRLS?" she wrinkled up her nose "Like MEN?"

"Like all Riders who fight Thread" said K'iara proudly "Not that I'm even close to being blooded yet, but I shall be, you know. And I am Impressed and entitled to recognition of that fact."

Something had just occurred to Teffie.

"That means you OUTRANK me!" she said in horror "My little sister!"

"Twice" said K'iara dryly "Because I'm also a crafter and now a Journeyman; because I trained at the Harper Hall they'll accept L'gal's recommendation without that I have to go back and I got confirmation of my promotion this summer. I did write! When you Impress, we'll just be Riders together you know; and you can always take up a craft if you wish."

Teffie wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, well, I'm not very musical, and none of the other crafts are terribly ladylike, are they?" she said.

K'iara rolled up her eyes.

"I thought father said you'd outgrown being silly?" she said scornfully. "Or have you picked up that crackdust from other Gold candidates at Fort? T'lana says some Gold Candidates are the silliest."

Teffie flushed.

"I just don't like getting dirty" she said.

"No? better go home then" said K'iara.

"What do you mean?" Teffie asked.

"Here ALL the candidates – boys, girls, aspiring to Green OR Gold, the lot – do chores to harden them so they can better care for a dragonet when they Impress. Gold Riders work hardest, their dragons need most caring for, nobody gets coddled at High Reaches. You'll bag firestone and carry it; the ones who Impressed just over a Turn ago will be carrying it into Fall to toss to the blooded fighting Riders to blood them to Fall; and we're now learning how to throw full sacks in preparation for when we get to do that in less than a turn's time. Builds up the muscles you know."

"They have GIRLS do that?" Teffie was horrified.

"If you want to ride a dragon you have to take all that that means. It doesn't mean swanning about looking pretty and getting adulation off the commons for doing nothing. It means facing and fighting Thread, and caring for your dragon before yourself" said K'iara uncompromisingly and with low intensity. "Teffie, if all you want is prestige, go home and be a Lord Holder's granddaughter. If you want to be a real dragonrider you need to adjust your thinking now or I'm afraid you're in for some shocks and probably some hazing from the other female candidates who know how to do a day's work; and I'd like to spare my sister that."

Teffie was profoundly shocked.

"I – I think dragons are wonderful" she said "I – I want to Impress: but I can't throw sacks of firestone about; I'm not strong enough!"

"No of course not; few can to start with" said K'iara. "Besides there's a knack to it as well; but it's why you do hard physical work from day one to build your muscles up. And then if you say that muscles are ugly, say THAT too Weyrwomen like T'lana or L'rilly, who are prettier even than you! You won't get muscle bound; just wiry and strong. Trust me! It's easy enough if you just accept, and do what's asked of you without complaining. And as to crafting, what about embroidery and other Weavercraft skills? If you care so much about being fancy."

Teffie flushed at the last.

"It's what I'm used to" she said defensively.

"Get un-used. We're not decoration here; the commons don't tithe for useless articles. You'll want to cut your nails too by the way, or you'll be forever breaking them. Tough as it is, I still sometimes break my gitar thumb and if it's below the quick it really hurts!"

Teffie swallowed. She had a lot to take on board.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

K'iara introduced Teffie to the other girls as:

"M'sister Teffie; be nice to her and ease her in gently, she's had a few idiots fostered with her who have crackdust between the ears."

Teffie flushed slightly, but greeted the other girls politely enough.

"K'iara's a good sort" said Carlinna "You're lucky to have her for an older sister."

"She's my YOUNGER sister!" said Teffie, indignantly.

Carlinna winced.

"Sorry. Foot in mouth my speciality" she apologised. "Wrong to make assumptions. Are you looking forward to being an auntie?"

Teffie had been told by her mother that K'iara had written to tell them that she was pregnant so that at least was less of a shock; but in truth she had forgotten, and K'iara in a loose smock for a warm autumnal day had not really shown enough for Teffie to notice.

"I still can't believe she'd be so careless!" she said "And surely there are people here who'd take it _Between_ for her?"

"Ah….." said Carlinna "I'm guessing that actually you and your sister aren't that close that you don't know how excited she is to be with child?"

"Well she's been off fiddling about at the Harper Hall for turns" shrugged Teffie.

There was a long silence.

"Yes, she's worked hard for her JOURNEYMAN status" said Carlinna, herself sporting Journeyman knots. "And she and H'gey want this baby very much you know. Your family's not very fertile in the female lines and I guess she's afraid to lose the opportunity; too much going _Between_ is thought to cause sterility."

"Oh, she's still with him then and hasn't moved on to another lover?" asked Teffie. She saw by the looks that this was the wrong thing to say too.

"They're WEYRMATES" said Carlinna "It's like marriage! Oh dear, you're not planning on upsetting the balance of life by being promiscuous are you? It's so tiresome!"

Teffie felt injured.

Everything she said seemed to be wrong.

"Well I don't know what she's like a all really" she almost snapped "I was hoping to find out. And no, I wasn't planning on being promiscuous. I might have the odd lover but I'm not about to throw myself in the furs of every handsome Rider that looks at me you know!"

"Oh, apologies then" said Carlinna "Only you seemed to assume K'iara might; so I wondered if you suggested things the way you planned to act. Lots of people do, like cheats are the first to accuse others of cheating. It's a well known phenomenon. Are you going to join the Logicators?"

"The what?" Teffie was baffled. She only half listened to half of what her mother told her about her sister's letters, not thinking so much younger a sister to be of much account. To find that K'iara was accounted someone to be respected here was a shock.

Carlinna explained the logicators, with additions from the others.

"It sounds rather….interfering" ventured Teffie.

"Oh it is" admitted Carlinna cheerfully. "But there are people alive because of our interference; or not made Holdless, or who have a live child returned to them not a murdered one. Like L'beth, whose daughter was kidnapped and 40,000 marks demanded for her safe return, when L'beth was Lady Libethra. Most people who aren't nasty like us to interfere."

"Oh" said Teffie dubiously. "Is Kit – er, K'iara – a member?"

"Oh of course!" said Carlinna airily "And H'gey's quite a leading light within it. They've a bunch at the Harper Hall that T'rin started. And the Harperweyr led the way in the craft stall for our orphans and needy."

Teffie had to have THAT explained too; and Carlinna privately thought that she and her sister might as well be strangers for all that Teffie knew of K'iara's life at the Weyr, let alone her time in the Harper Hall!

Teffie was a little bit spoilt, and a little bit silly; but she was no idiot. She realised rapidly that she had much to learn, and that the things she had always considered to be priorities might not be considered in the least bit important here. The main priority here was the dragons of course; and Teffie had no quarrel with that!

Also, the other female candidates were not to be seen as rivals, as when she had stood at Fort Weyr for a Queen egg, for there was more than one Green dragon to be had. And if they all Impresses, they would be colleagues, as K'iara had said, and it would be better to be friends than otherwise. Teffie gave an embarrassed laugh.

"I hope you girls will help me learn to fit in" she said "I can see I have a lot to learn – and, I suppose, a lot to Unlearn. I'm here because I love dragons and K'iara suggested I might try for a Green dragon in the only place that routinely puts girls forward for Greens. I hope that's enough?"

The others relaxed; accepting that she needed help meant that Teffie was a decent sort underneath the apparent airs and graces.

"Admitting to yourself that there's plenty to learn is a big step" said Carlinna, approvingly. "It took me long enough – three hatchings! We all have plenty to learn, all our lives, but it's those willing to do so who are the best, you know!"

And it was as easy as that!

Teffie still found it hard to adjust her outlook; but she intended to try her hardest in the hopes of the love of a beautiful dragon. After all, if the attitudes she must learn were approved by the dragons, those views must be more correct than those she knew. And everyone knew that Fort Weyr still had some Oldtimer attitudes that were not thought much of by other Riders – had not K'star and M'ander preferred to transfer to High Reaches after all!

oOoOo

Teffie was shocked at first at the concept of the child hold; not for the idea of caring for orphans and unwanted babes, but that to her mind such was the duty of the Lords Holders. Patiently Carlinna explained that many people preferred their overlords not to know about their illegitimate babes – or even their own parents if they managed to conceal a pregnancy – and saw deformed offspring too as objects of shame to be hidden as failures. Dragonfolk arriving from the sky to take a child were more anonymous, and whilst this was to be deplored, until attitudes could be changed, this at least gave the unwanted a chance. Most Holderfolk believed weyrfolk too high and mighty to be bothered with the identities of commons, and some even believed that the unwanted children were fattened to feed to dragons! Y'lara had had a thing or two to say on that score to the couple who had given up the midget child Vakas, who had asked if he would ever be a big enough morsel. She had told them succinctly what she thought of people who would give up children to be eaten, and explained what she would have done to them had the babe been of an age to understand the fate his stupid parents believed themselves to be giving him up to! As Y'lara pointed out that dragons might not eat people but that she would have no compunction about cooking their living tripes to make them eat themselves if they EVER frightened any children with such stories again, she left the couple trembling and chastened. Y'lara did not care how frightened they were; she had heard how the woman who had first raised K'lana and Takula had threatened to feed them to dragons to make them behave, so it had taken a lot of persuasion to get them to eat when they first came to the Weyr for fear they were being fattened up.

Once Teffie understood that it was not entirely the failure of the Lords Holders but more the intransigent attitudes of the Holderfolk she became more enthusiastic about the whole idea; after all, as she said to the other girls, she HAD been reared to the concept 'Blood obligates', and therefore if the people would not go to their overlords, at least the Lords could help matters through their Impressed relatives. She wrote straight away to Lord Groghe to suggest that he speak to N'ton to institute a similar system with Hold subsidisation of the resultant orphans if his people were as stupid!

oOoOo

N'ton listened to the enthusiastic rumbling of his loudest Lord Holder and tried to explain that unlike the er, eccentric Riders of the High Reaches, HIS people were not likely to be enthusiastic about rearing the unwanted children of others; and managed to strike a compromise that a special orphanage would be set up and that the more flexible Fort Weyr Riders would act as couriers to bring orphans and exposed children in while the irascible Lord Holder funded the affair and assigned his own staff to run it.

After the problems that had arisen from a cripple Impressing, when H'gey had Impressed Brieth at Fort, to the consternation of so many Riders, N'ton dared not actually suggest fostering children who had disabilities in the Weyr itself! He wondered at T'bor; but then thought shame on himself for forgetting that Dragonriders Protect and Serve, and he resolved to have a word with T'bor about sending some smokeless Weyrlings north to spend some time seeing how High Reaches Weyr managed and learning their attitudes there to bring back for the new generation.

oOoOo

Meanwhile Teffie was settling in and could be seen to be no problem. However she was not the last female candidate to arrive, and Larrina, a pretty, seaholdbred girl from Bitra was a different matter.

Like Teffie, Larrina was a disappointed candidate for a Queen egg; and Aderina recognised her when the new girl was brought in by the obliging Ch'sseri from Benden.

Aderina clutched the arms of the nearest two girls for support, who happened to be Teffie and Geiona.

"That's Larrina!" she said in dismay. "Oh NO!"

"What's her problem?" asked Deiona "She a bully?"

"N-no…. she's as hard as nails though. She – she laughed at me when I was raped and said I was a stupid kid to get into that situation if I didn't want to go through with it. And maybe I was, but…."

"Tunnel snake" said Geiona "Well, we'll be polite; make like you don't recognise her. That'll drive her up the pole."

Aderina managed a grin.

"Thanks" she said.

K'iara had accepted the duty of greeting new female candidates; as a junior weyrwoman and a Harper it seemed appropriate. T'arla claimed to be antisocial, M'ia was shy, and I'linne was a younger girl as well as being a little, 'er, overwhelming to those not accustomed to her extensive vocabulary' as T'lana put it.

I'linne had grinned at this and murmured,

"Indubitably as unnerving an experience on initial appearance."

So K'iara had volunteered. She was well trained in social skills as a girl of the Blood, and found it no ordeal. Accordingly she introduced this new candidate to the others.

"Well, well, little Aderina" drawled Larrina, who was twenty one turns old and felt very superior to these youngsters. "I should have thought that you'd worry about the voracious appetites – sexual appetites I mean, of course – of Green dragons."

"Excuse me?" said Aderina "You address me as though you consider yourself known to me. Have we ever met?"

"My dear child! How can you be such a dimglow? You ARE from Benden after all; I was a candidate there as well you know!" said Larrina.

Aderina peered at her, and shrugged.

It was beautifully done.

"Can't say I've much recollection of you" she said nonchalantly. "So many failed candidates come and go, it's hard to keep track of any of them, they're all so much alike."

Larrina was put out; but did not lose her temper.

"Ah well, what can one expect from such a child as you!" she said disparagingly.

"Well, I'll leave you girls to get on with it" said K'iara, certain that the steadier girls would deal with any tensions that might be building. "Carlinna is chief female candidate; she's in charge of the dormitory."

"Excuse me? Surely I'm older than she is" said Larrina. "Should not I be in charge of the dormitory?"

K'iara looked at her with the well-simulated surprise cultivated by High Reaches weyrwomen and Weyrwomen when dealing with the presumptions of the more self-loving candidates.

"A new incomer with no proven ability? I hardly think so" said the Harper, looking down her nose. "Carlinna is a Journeyman too and so knows responsibility. The next choice would be Teffie who has kin in this Weyr and is well trained in leadership skills and is known to the Weyr Leaders. She's also about your age, though age is NOT a consideration. It is experience and reliability that are taken into account."

It was indeed High Reaches policy to depress the pretensions of ANY candidate who came in expecting higher position or better treatment than any of the others.

Larrina seemed to accept this ruling quite readily and made no disparaging comments about custom, nor about the accommodation as some spoiled girls had. She asked relatively sensible questions about rules, and even accepted the concept of working hard to develop muscles without so much as a blink. Carlinna was wondering whether she had been merely tactless that had led to an unfortunate comment and upset Aderina.

When Carlinna explained the Logicators and the Child Hold however, Larrina looked confused.

"But why bother? If people can't solve their own problems, why make an effort on their behalf?" she said. "And as for taking on cripples, why that's foolishness. They should be given an overdose of fellis to stop them wasting resources."

She looked surprised when suddenly all the girls started shouting at her.

Carlinna held up her hand; the voices stopped.

"For one thing, what you are suggesting is murder" she said coldly "We have autonomy, all of us, over our own lives to choose if we have quality of life or not, this right is protected by the Charter. For another, even if crippled in one respect, many have other talents. Blue Rider Harper Journeyman H'gey for example, a relation of our Teffie, had his back broken on Harper business; pretty ungrateful the Harpers and the rest of us would have been to murder him when he had given the use of his legs to stop renegades! And besides, it did not stop his ability to play and sing and teach. And he did not accept the verdict that he would likely never walk again and now needs only a stick to get around. Queenrider Sh'rilla, crippled with disease in childhood, uses a flamethrower on her adapted chair as well as any Queenrider and better than any in the old days who were crippled merely by convention and inertia. Radall, born without legs, is a very skilled woodcrafter. To say that those who have disabilities are useless, you are talking from HERE" and she delivered a stinging rebuke to Larrina's own backside "And if you do not understand the oath a dragonrider makes you will never Impress!"

Larrina looked taken aback.

"The oath? To fight Thread? Why what has that….."

"The oath, my good ass" drawled Carlinna "Is to protect and serve the people of Pern. There is no qualification to that – no 'except the crippled' or 'except the Holdless'; nor does it specify Thread as the only thing to protect against. 'Protect and serve the people of Pern' it says. Quite clear I would say."

"Hear-hear" said Geiona "And if they need protecting from their own relatives, who in some cases are quite nearly as stupid as you, Larrina, that covers that too."

"What do you think you'd be riding a dragon for, dimglow?" said Aderina "Just to be decorative?"

"We have our duty; and besides that it is a matter of common humanity" said Teffie.

"Yeah" said Geiona "Tell me, Larrina, as an obvious outsider, what is your opinion of the human race?"

It was a phrase T'rin had barked at dirty Tanaish when taking a class in general knowledge and Geiona had stored it away in the hopes of the chance to use it.

"Well I think you're all incredibly naïve and childish" said Larrina, ignoring Geiona's question. "Where's the marks to come from to look after these cripples of yours? If you increase the tithes you'll soon get complaints – and small wonder!"

"Some Lords have donated funds" said Carlinna quietly "And some of us – most, actually – who have the ability to perform a craft for not being useless objects unable to shift, give our time to produce goods to sell on a Weyr craft stall at Gathers. And many of our cripples, when old enough, can earn enough through joining crafts, to support themselves. Radall, at nine turns old already earns four hundred marks a turn with his excellent work. Oh, and by the way, SOME problems can be cured by surgery."

"You let the Healer Hall experiment on them? Well I suppose that's one use for them" said Larrina

Teffie boxed her ears hard.

"NEVER speak so about the Healers" she said coldly "Surgery is not experimentation. Healers know what they are doing. My Grandfather has always known that his father could have been saved if his mother hadn't had such stupid ideas as you have! And it would have been a simple operation! To be so hidebound and ragingly IGNORANT in this day and age unless you come from a cothold so buried in the High Reaches as to be inaccessible for three quarters of the turn or were born a tinker girl without any education. In either of which cases you are due sympathy and help."

"How DARE you? I'm not Holdless trash!" howled Larrina.

"Holdless equates trash, huh?" said Geiona, her eyes sparkling dangerously.

"Of course! Such feckless creatures deserve to die out in Fall!" said Larrina.

"Ah well, Bronze Riders D're and Ch'vul and Green Riders M'ielle and T'arla, Gold Rider Sh'rilla and Blue Rider Harper T'rin will be thoroughly delighted to know what you think of them" said Geiona sweetly "As I am delighted to know how you feel about me too. Girls, this one has crackdust between the ears; let's send her to Southern."

"Seconded" said Teffie

"Thirded" said Aderina "If there is such a word."

"Motion proposed, agreed and carried" said Carlinna. "Other than necessary instructions, Larrina, none of us is going to speak to you from now on: you're too much of a waste of space for us to be bothered with you."

"How childish!" sneered Larrina.

"Then grow up and apologise and learn how to be a decent human being" said Carlinna; and deliberately turned her back on the girl.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The girls passed on Larrina's views to Impressed weyrlings and the male candidates; and Larrina soon found that precious few people would talk to her! Larrina shrugged, and intimated that she had no desire to talk to such childish people anyway. However, the young woman, on overhearing a joking reference made to L'rilly about the Queenrider's grandfather, Lord Groghe, decided to buttonhole the blonde Gold Rider and express her opinion on the childishness of the other candidates, adding a request for a single room away from such silly children.

L'rilly listened; and questioned her on what was so childish about the other candidates and why they had sent the older girl to Southern. She listened in growing disbelief as Larrina told her what she thought of their – in her opinion – stupid views.

"And you thought I'd then agree with all you say and provide you with single accommodation on such grounds?" asked L'rilly, levelly.

"Well, yes, Queenrider. You are adult, naturally; and raised, I'm sure, to realities" said Larrina with a little smug smile.

"I was raised to believe that Blood obligates, my girl" said L'rilly, grimly. "Are you dim, or just crass?"

"Queenrider? I don't understand" said Larrina.

"You don't, eh? You didn't ascertain who my weyrmate is then?"

"Weyrmate? Isn't that your dragon?" asked Larrina, for whom the concept of long term relations in a Weyr had not impinged.

"No. It's my husband – in all but name" said L'rilly coldly. "My weyrmate, Bronze Rider D're, who came to us a cripple of a Holdless family, bringing with him a fair of unwanted children from all over. HE made us realise the problems there were that we didn't know about. And you think, you insolent little fork-splat, that I'm going to agree for one instant with your stupid, ignorant, ill-formed and puerile ideas? People like you cause the flaws in society that people like us try to plug. You are a monstrous aberration of a veritable excuse for a human being raised on the milk of human unkindness to achieve new depths of inanity and fatuous wherry-headed nastiness that oozes out like a stream of spoken snot from your filthy little mouth and if any dragon is so misguided as to pick you for the want of anyone better like a lice-ridden loving wench with a social disease and drunken habits I will personally take you and so fool a dragon South and let you have the joy of the dregs of T'kul's men!"

Larrina gasped at the fury in L'rilly's tone and fled!

L'rilly had not been careful to moderate her volume and her words were soon spread across the entire Weyr by those who had overheard her, to the delight of the candidates.

T'rin grinned at L'rilly.

"I'll have to watch my reputation as having the best line in insults in the Weyr!" he said.

L'rilly grinned back.

"Who do you think I learned it from?" she said.

oOoOo

Three more candidates arrived at much the same time: Manalla, cotholdbred, Rillaya, Holdbred from Nabol, and Tawenne, the child of a drudge in the Glasscrafter Hall, sent on to High Reaches by G'narish since Igen had no clutch at the time, nor was he yet prepared for female candidates other than those already shown to have the strongest of wills. Tawenne was by no means weak of will, but she was not very forceful. And, said G'narish, he already had one girl who needed bringing out and he couldn't cope with another when High Reaches were so good at it.

Tawenne DID manage to extract the life stories of most of the other candidates and was voted an excellent logicator!

Rillaya was incined at first to see Larrina's point of view as an initial reaction; but she asked searching questions about funding, and nodded acceptance when this was explained.

"It's not nice to push people aside" she said "But I do hold the view that the common good must be put above the individual. But if the Weyr is maintained for its normal purpose and can ALSO help in other ways at no detriment to its performance, I see no reason why anyone might object. And on the subject of what is given back, if a girl can do no more than have one child, that adds to new blood?"

"Or a boy impregnate" said Carlinna. "There is that too; new blood is good and bloodlines of those who are survivors have to be good blood. Some weyrs come close to being incestuous I think."

"[COUGH] Telgar![COUGH]" Aderina coughed the word into her hand. She had picked up quite a lot at Benden that made more sense where people were more open.

"And if your orphans and cripples can be trained to crafts and crafting it also means there's a cadre of people after the Pass grateful to the Weyr to help support it if the tithing falls off like last time, huh?" asked Manalla.

"Sharp" said Carlinna. "We want to be independent if we can; and of course we have the Logicators and the mountain rescue too. No tithe, no aid. But being able to feed ourselves don't hurt any."

"I like" said Manalla. "Reckon I'd not be averse to helping there if I don't Impress."

"Go report to Journeyman Teleman our farmcrafter; he'll sort you out apprentice knots if you've a desire" said Carlinna.

"Thanks: I will" said Manalla. "Being apprenticed to a crafter gives me more Right to stay, correct?"

"Absolutely" said Carlinna. "There's another girl apprentice there, Mallitta, she's only a kid but her brother B'ron's also a farmcraft apprentice."

"You keep it if you Impress?" Manalla was interested.

"Oh yes – we try to progress in craft too if we Impress, as far as our duties permit" said Carlinna.

"What about us – Tawenne and me?" asked Rillaya.

"See if there's a craft you fancy and ask for apprenticeship; otherwise find chores to your liking before chores are found for you!" grinned Carlinna.

oOoOo

The final two girls to arrive were totally unalike. Niella was a quiet, gentle girl no older than Aderina; and the weyrbred girl took her under her own wing. Niella was no milksop; and gentle as she was, she had a strongly developed sense of justice that led to her slapping the other new girl, Nensa, for making the comment that she hoped Aderina would not fill the dormitory with men as weyrbred brats doubtless had the same appetities as Green dragons.

Carlinna said mildly,

"That's my job, Niella, not yours. You deserved it, Nensa, for such a stupidly prejudiced comment. Try thinking before you open your mouth: it might save you from irritating someone like a Blooded Rider, who is likely to give you a good spanking for such comments."

Nensa looked shocked.

"A MAN wouldn't spank me surely?"

"Why not? If you rely on being a girl to avoid punishment, you're in the wrong place. You're a candidate; the lowest of the low, like all of us, save those with craft position" said Carlinna with faint amusement.

"But that's next door to RAPE!" declared Nensa.

Carlinna laughed an angry laugh as Aderina went white, and motioned the younger girl to silence as Aderina would have burst into indignant speech.

"If you think a good spanking is next door to rape, my girl, you've a very funny idea of the REAL pain and humiliation of rape. And we've girls here who have been raped – Impressed and otherwise – who came to the Weyr to start again and that sort of ignorant comment so is going to get you treated with the scorn you deserve, you idiot" Carlinna said. "The fosterlings of Queenrider L'rilly are the children of rape, and birthing twins after the horror of getting them in such circumstance is not by any means to be compared to a mere spanking. Now grow up!"

Nensa sulked.

Carlinna could not see her Impressing anyway; she squealed every time a dragon came close. What SHE was doing in the Weyr was anyone's guess!

Tawenne provided a possible answer.

"She doesn't want to wed" she told Carlinna "And she's already nineteen and her parents are getting snippy. She thinks sex is disgusting."

"Oh, I wonder if she's a female homosexual?" wondered Carlinna "I'll ask Shuba to talk to her; thanks kid!"

oOoOo

Shuba had to be calmed down by T'lana; with Carlinna apologising profusely for opening her to abuse and denigration from Nensa.

Nensa had called Shuba and Joana foul and revolting, unnatural and disgusting.

"Well if you ask me" said T'lana, dryly, "She protests almost too much; and doesn't WANT to think of the idea because it OUGHT to be disgusting to her thought. I've often noted that the Blue Riders who make the most noise about how disgusting it would be to fly a male Green Rider are those who've been aroused by lads at some point and are ashamed of it. Carlinna, you meant well; I'm sure Shuba accepts that."

"Oh yes, I do!" agreed Shuba "If I'd had somebody to talk to me to explain I'd have been delighted. She's just a horrid creature; indeed she's the one who's unnatural if she's denying her own nature."

"Thanks, Shuba" said Carlinna "Well, I guess you can't help those that won't accept it; maybe she will one day. It took me a while to accept help over MY problem."

Shuba shrugged.

"She knows where to find me" she said dryly.

oOoOo

Manalla felt privileged to be part of the farmercraft team who were working with Calla and the High Reaches Healers who were able to extract from the sport strain of Fellis grown at Three Rivers Hold an oil that, when made into a cream, could reduce pain of a chronic nature without the attendant numbness of numbweed, the which carried its own problems. Every Rider and Dragon with joint-ail blessed the experimenters straight away; and Sh'rilla cried in pleasure at the relief from constant pain without loss of feeling!

Blue Rider Rr'kan, nephew of Holder Priarish of Three Rivers, wrote delightedly to his uncle to increase the stands of pink fellis, and told him why. The young Blue Rider also signed up for Farmercraft apprenticeship, though the unkind whispered that this was to escape his youthful cousin Arrek who had come in as a candidate and followed Pr'kan around like an inept puppy trying to help him, and causing no end of trouble by his enthusiastic but clumsy attempts! Pr'kan tried to be tolerant and bite his often sarcastic tongue; but it WAS a relief to escape to duties the boy had no hand in, and Pr'kan begged Teleman either to refuse Arrek an apprenticeship or arrange him duties at a distance from himself!

Teleman was a good natured young man; and when Arrek did approach him, he asked the boy searching questions, and turned Arrek down on grounds that the boy sought apprenticeship for the wrong reasons and should consider his choices with more care.

Pr'kan was profoundly grateful!

Samples of the rubbing fellis were flown south to the Healer Hall, together with seeds from Priarish' store; and Three Rivers Hold was shortly in demand!

Priarish was a rich man now; and promptly drew up a document pledging a fifth of all profits for ever from the pink fellis to the Weyr, who had discovered the crop in the first place before it was put to improper use, and then too developed its use.

The Weyr was grateful and touched that he should be so generous; and presented him with a whole clutch of firelizard eggs to distribute, both as thanks, and to help guard the crop.

"You do good work" said Priarish. "Caught those fardling villains before I even realised their villainy; and took the trouble to look into that weird crop. You deserve it; and this is a princely gift, Weyrwoman T'lana."

"We do have a good source" said T'lana.

Priarish scratched his head.

"Strikes me you could do worse than sell eggs for your orphan hold" he said "Queen and Bronze eggs fetch up to five hundred marks."

"The reason we don't is because we'd not sell a cousin of dragons to just anyone" said T'lana. "We prefer to have them in our gift for friends and those who need messengers, like outlying cotholders who couldn't normally afford them. We trust people like you to choose wisely who you give them to."

"Well that's mighty good of you!" said Priarish, touched. "Aye, well, I see your reasons, Weyrwoman; happen you're right at that. Plenty green lizards went to the undeserving in the old fork-face's day, pardon my language."

"I could call him worse without blushing" said T'lana laconically. "I fled Meron's advances; it's how I fetched up at the Weyr."

"Well good riddance to bad rubbish so far as he's concerned!" said Priarish cheerfully..

To THAT sentiment, T'lana readily concurred.

oOoOo

The smell that still permeated from Tanaish was finally banished when Rorik, firmly putting the boy's underlinen out to wash, said scornfully.

"Looks like you don't do anything more than a perfunctory swipe with the rag-on-a-stick, you've forkmarks all over your breechclout."

"What's a rag-on-a-stick?" asked Tanaish.

After the collective shudders and exclamations of disgust he was shown – with perhaps more vigour than kindness.

"You're all a bunch of homos!" wailed Tanaish.

"Believe me, laddie, no homosexual would come anywhere near the filth of your rear end" said Shoritty. "And unless you keep your front tackle clean too, nor will any woman. This is for your own good as well as ours; we are NOT enjoying this any more than you. Just learn to live in a civilised way!"

oOoOo

Hatching in the end was relatively uneventful.

The sole Bronze dragonet in the clutch bawled his way into Shoritty's arms, now Sh'rit and no great surprise to anyone. Nilamon became N'mon, delighted to join his cousins B'mall and B'ron as a colleague; and D'lin delighted the woodcrafters by having learned enough to Impress a Brown dragon. L'ter was relieved; it being his final hatching as of right, he was sobbing with joy to be leaving the hatching grounds with a dainty Green dragon. Of those from the previous hatching, he was one of four who Impressed, the others being Z'vek, J'rek and S'kind, the latter of whose new lease of confidence with his improved speech probably had something to do with it!

The younger boys who had generally been expected to Impress but had not done so were treated to sage noddings of heads and the explanation that their dragons were not yet shelled; and there was some controversy over whether the trader twins would Impress if they stood another time or no, for opinion was divided over Yanas.

"You don't need to be clever to be a good, brave man" said R'gar "He can learn the patterns to walk, that's all he needs. I'll set them to it again, certainly."

Eight of the ten girls Impressed; and it was no surprise that Larrina and Nensa were the two who were disappointed. A'rina would always have a partisan supporter from now on; and T'fie was delighted to be a colleague of the sister she was slowly coming to know, having swallowed her chagrin at being 'K'iara's sister' rather than it being the other way round! C'linna wept with joy, surrounded by the other artists. There was no greater joy to be had; she had everything life could offer her, art, friends and now her beloved Prissith!

Impression was always an emotional time for everyone; and the people of High Reaches were far too involved in it to care much at first for the discovery in the Southern Continent of the original settlement of the Ancients!

Of course representatives were subsequently sent, H'llon being the one expected to get most out of the experience.

T'lana said however,

"It's nice to know where we came from; and when knowledge has been lost, good to recover it. But what's important too is where we're going from."

oOoOo

H'llon was the one who spent most time at the Plateau, and T'rin went fairly often too; but with little to show but the fact that the Ancients HAD landed there, most of the Weyr looked upon such things as Segrith rising a month and a half after the discovery as more interesting.


	12. Chapter 12

_I'm posting this last thing tonight instead of first thing tomorrow morning because I'll be tied up with the vet all day tomorrow from too-early-in-the-morning-to-do-anything-but-grunt until early afternoon while Merlin has his nuts off. I've been asked to add the note that in America 'fits' are called 'seizures' to make something clear.  
><em>

**Chapter 12**

It was the considered opinion of many folks at High Reaches Weyr that Benden got itself a little too preoccupied with uncovering the Southern Plateau; it was mildly interesting but not absorbing enough for dragons to lose their dignity to dig. It appeared that the original settlers had fled from a volcanic eruption of the aptly named Two-faced Mountain, but they had managed to take quite a lot of materiel with them, or at least they had been able to come back and retrieve it.

The flying machines visualised by the firelizards that had brought the settlers were intriguing; but of no use. And the room called AIVAS may once have been a teaching aid, since it briefly talked some gibberish and had a board with letters on, but it kept repeating the meaningless phrase 'system malfunction' and was held to be a broken version of H'llon's recording cylinders. As T'lana said dryly, after nine Passes, if it were in any wise mechanical it was scarcely surprising that it should be broken. There might be enough there for the Smiths to piece together some ides, but T'lana thought it all quite disappointing. However it served its use in being something to interest the retired Masterharper Robinton, without taxing him too much. And that, said T'rin, had to be good. As the greater part of what was found appeared to be children's teaching books, that fell within the province of a Harper as well as interesting H'llon from the point of view of how they were printed and the amount of illustration and large size of the letters.

The main upshot of H'llon's interest was that he was approached by Masterwoodcrafter Bendarek and Smithcraftmaster Fandarel with a couple of propositions.

"Your printed letters are fine work in wood and will quickly swell and split if much used, correct?" asked Fandarel.

"Unfortunately, yes" said H'llon "Though we've been using stone for more frequently used letters. And we can always carve more."

"Why not carve the originals and have them cast in bronze?" suggested Master Fandarel. "They'd last almost forever then; and you could afford to carve them very small like the letters in that mathematics book, because they'd never be used as vulnerable wooden ones."

H'llon's eyes widened.

"Brilliant!" he said. "THANK you Master Fandarel – it's a totally brilliant idea. I have a smithtrained lad who helps me out – he transferred to the Harperweyr."

"Oh I hope to send you more" Fandarel was chuckling. "Ben and I have a further proposition to put."

"In consultation with other Craftmasters" said Bendarek "We feel that the time has come for a papermakers and printers Hall to be a separate craft, affiliated with Wood, Smith and Harpercrafts. And there's only one person qualified to be the new Masterprinter."

"Oh?" asked H'llon, wondering if they wanted him to transfer to work under this new Master and if they had forgotten he had his obligations to fight Thread too.

Bendarek chuckled at the wary look on the modest Bronze Rider's face.

"You, H'llon. We want you to be Master Printer. I'll send you back Telfer to run the woodcrafting side of things in your workshop; and Elissa's fosterling Tahnee who invented the moveable letters idea. And we'd like you to build a proper crafthall outside the Weyr to work out of."

"But – a master? Me? Master Bendarek, I'm not old enough for one thing! And what about my duties as a Rider?" protested H'llon.

"You're old enough to be inventive, innovative and flexible enough to accept new ideas from others" said Bendarek . "You're the best papermaker I've ever had; and you produce the most printed material already. Freed from general wood work and able, as a Master, to delegate, I suspect you'd find time."

"What will T'bor say?" demanded H'llon.

"He said yes" said Fandarel. "we already asked him; because disseminating information is something that he sees as worth even reducing your duties for if need be. He can also see the efficiency of the Weyr having the use of the main Printers Hall. And a crafthall is revenue to a hosting Hold, why not to the Weyr?."

H'llon blinked.

"Well if you're sure you want me to do it – I mean, I'd love the challenge of starting a new crafthall if T'bor is willing to cut me some slack while it gets going; over the winter we have less Threadfall in any case with it freezing or drowning….."

"We're quite sure" said Bendarek. "And so is T'bor. What colours will you choose for your craft?" he changed the subject firmly before H'llon started to calculate how much time he could spare. T'bor had said that if H'llon never fought Thread again, his innovations had saved enough lives that he could spare one Bronze Rider even if that Bronze Rider was not actually being more useful in printing than in flying Thread that any brave knucklehead could manage.

H'llon considered the question posed.

"Minercraft is black; but if we have black and white twisted to signify the written word on paper that would be symbolic. We'll have ABC in black on a white ground for our badge."

"Good. Nicat has promised miners and masons to help you build, and to put you a tunnel through for your convenience" said Fandarel "We hope you'll be able to open the Crafthall at Turnover, giving you a few more cold months to get it up and running. It' an auspicious date, Turnover."

"I – er, yes, I'm sure that will be possible" said H'llon frowning in thought. "I'll want to train people up and graduate them young as Journeymen though: to have teachers available. And I can't step aside from my duties as Wing Leader unless we have cold weather."

"Understood" said Fandarel.

"It's a small craft as yet" said Bendarek "And you can stand aside when you have people trained and be there more in an advisory capacity like any other craft master rather than teaching. And it's up to the Masterprinter who he promotes to Journeyman – or Master!"

H'llon was walking on air!

A ceremony with a conclave of Mastercrafters from all the crafts confirmed H'llon's status; and he was ceremoniously presented with his new knots, a black and white cord teamed with the white cord of a craft's Home Hall.

It would be very exciting!

The idea of a new Crafthall was not, it had to be admitted, exciting to all however; H'gey and K'iara were more interested in the birthing of their daughter, whom they named Geyara. And if K'iara was heard to express views that laying eggs would be easier, both were delighted with the result, and K'iara's views were not uncommon amongst weyrwomen in any case.

oOoOo

Tahnee and Telfer arrived at High Reaches the next day, courtesy of D'vind and Ch'sseri; and H'llon re-introduced Tahnee to Ipominea, whom she had met when Elissa had brought her fosterling on a visit to the Weyr.

"You're fourteen, Tahnee, and quite legitimately a Journeyman; Ipominea will be your senior apprentice" said H'llon, handing out the appropriate knots. Ipominea had wanted to be a part of this new craft rather than pursue woodcrafting; she had already helped H'llon in a number of experiments and had a love of innovation.

Both girls were very excited!

Master Fandarel also sent a young Journeyman Smithcrafter, with skill at casting fine castings, with the request that he transfer his journeyman status.

"My name's Saralsi, Master H'llon" said the Journeyman "And I've developed an idea of a bed to place words in with ridges to hold the words straighter."

"Now that IS useful, Journeyman Saralsi" said H'llon happily. "You and the girls get to know each other, then we'll have a meeting to decide how we're going to organise things; I'll not be bothering about relative rank, I want idead."

Saralsi shrugged.

"I'm no stickler for protocol if you're not, sir" he said, cheerfully.

"Good. Then apart from in front of our new apprentices to be, it's H'llon, same as I am to my woodcraft apprentices" said the Bronze Rider.

"Very well, H'llon: at your disposal" grinned Saralsi. He had been a little nervous of the idea of working under a Master who was also a Bronze Rider, and Wingleader, but he found he need not have worried! Why, H'llon was interested only in the good of the new craft and not high on his dignity at all!

oOoOo

Telfer was glad to be back in the Weyr too, the first real home he had had since the accident that had deprived him of his sight, the only place that first helped him compensate and then arranged for him to have an operation to largely restore his vision. He was proud to be the new Weyrwoodcrafter too! Radall and Serelis were excited to see him again, and Diccon and V'lie pleased to meet someone their colleagues had spoken about so warmly. Telfer wanted too to test how much Sadvia and he would miss each other; they had paired up in a casual way over the last Turn, but Telfer was unsure if the Ranking girl was ready for any commitment and certainly not to someone not of her Rank and he did not wish to get hurt. If Sadvia missed him she could always request a transfer or ask to come to High Reaches as a candidate on Search. That was easy enough! And if she was unsure of her reception, well she could always write, or find an excuse to be sent with messages. If not? Well it was better to find out now before his heart was too seriously engaged.

oOoOo

The Printcrafters and Woodcrafters were a trifle preoccupied with the new Hall; but life in the Weyr went on.

The ageing Blue of a small Hold in Nabol brought two women; and presented them to T'lana with an air of some relief and left them to her. T'lana raised an eyebrow.

"Weyrwoman, I am Jeinne of Moorside Hold" said one, a rather mannish young woman with soft brown hair, blue eyes and a determined chin. "This is – or WAS – my maid, Neminda" she indicated the other girl, a turn or two younger, with golden curls. "We're lovers. You accept that here, don't you?"

"Oh quite cheerfully" said T'lana. "You're escaping prejudice?"

"MUCH worse than that" declared Jeinne "My father has arranged a marriage for me to take place at Turnover. It's been arranged for three turns and he told me about it yesterday."

"Impolite of him" said T'lana dryly. Jeinne shot her a look and grinned.

"You favour litotes here then" she said.

"It helps us survive the incomprehensible things parents out there do to their children" said T'lana. "Forced marriage isn't the worst; but it's bad enough."

Jeinne brightened to see she had support.

"It's formalised rape; and when I told father so he took his belt to me" she said. "Even if I liked men in that way, it's not right; and besides, I've met the man in question. He's quite ancient – almost thirty – and looks like a tunnel snake on fellis."

The description was too much for T'lana's sobriety and the little Weyrwoman roared with laughter.

"Why that sounds like Holder Irgen's oldest son to a T!" she said.

Jeinne's eyes widened.

"You know him?"

"Not personally; but our I'linne and her sister Ipominea fostered at Reedmere until we rescued them; and I'linne described Irgol as, um, 'pertaining to the slimiest reptiloid imaginable were there any minor degree of animation to suggest that the loathsome creature not be under the tender mercies of a taxidermist.'"

Jeinne chuckled.

"We need to meet this I'linne, Mindy. She sounds fun."

Neminda looked wary.

"Does she like women too?" she asked.

"She's scarcely old enough for any sexual endeavour" said T'lana "Being barely Turned fourteen. She has an attachment to one of the Harperweyr boys however; so I'd say there was no need for jealousy. And, moreover, we DO like our stable couples to be that – stable. We do NOT like outbreaks of jealousy – or any who give cause for it. If you don't trust each other you should not be together. We respect your preferences, but don't be together just because you're the only homosexual women you know. There are others."

Neminda flushed.

"I – I do trust her!" she said "Only….only…."

"Only she's afraid that because I have Rank and she's born a drudge I'll abandon her for someone higher born; she's insecure is all. And hit about by my father and kin too, it's no wonder" said Jeinne, putting a protective arm about the younger girl.

T'lana nodded.

"Then you will teach her to trust by your constancy, Jeinne" she said "Here you rank equal; weyrwomen of the caverns if you do not want to stand for Impression; or the lower status of candidates if you DO wish to stand. Candidates are the lowest of the low – unless they have a craft – for having earned NOTHING."

Jeinne grinned.

"I already walk sweep – I dress as a drudge boy to avoid father – and Neminda came with me last time. Only – if I Impress a Green dragon, won't I get had by a man when she rises?"

T'lana shrugged.

"You can sequester yourself. Heterosexual male Green Riders like my clutchmate S'gell do. Besides, I've a theory that if homosexual boys can Impress female dragons, homosexual women can Impress male ones. I'd back you for a Blue; you've got the force of personality. Heh, hald of our girls on Greens could be Queenriders in any other Weyr; I'linne is only one of 'em. ALL female Riders get respect only just short of junior Queenriders here because frankly a lot of them do the same jobs as any junior Queenrider in being a liaison to outsiders. And neither of you was bothered by your trip dragonback."

"Dragons are so beautiful" said Neminda "It's why I wanted to go out on sweep, to watch them all go back over. And the Queenriders and Green Riders are so friendly and waved to us!"

"We always like to wave back if people make salute to us" sad T'lana "It's only polite. People walking sweep hold up THEIR end of the bargain of protection; and those moorlands are just fardles to sweep. We send out our smokeless weyrlings with agenothree to cover the middle where there are isolated clumps of vegetation."

"Oh that's how it's done!" said Jeinne "I wondered how uninhabited areas were dealt with!"

"It keeps the weyrlings out of mischief" said T'lana "And teaches them to observe – it's easier to see incursions from above. Sometimes tunnels start; and Thread spreads. Whilst the planet eventually kills any Thread by raining on it, while it's growing it can be a potential threat. It's why we also send out regular patrols, to pick up any stray tunnels as well as to see if anyone needs us. Well, if you're candidates you should live in the dormitory; but as you're a couple I'll see if I can't find you a bit more privacy in a weyrling weyr. We've no clutch yet but Segrith has risen. She's an Oldtimer Queen and hasn't been laying many eggs of late – and my Mirrith wasn't that prolific for her last time, only twenty four – so don't be disappointed if nothing comes of the first Impression. Most of the other girls who'll be standing are just kids except the two who were the only two not to Impress last time and who I don't believe have much chance in the future, Larrina and Nensa; and then there's Teesha who may not Impress for excellent other reasons in that she's too wrapped up in her music. Great girl; reckon you'll like her, she's resourceful and brave as well as being very musical. She'll introduce you to the Impressed girls of the Harperweyr, including I'linne. Of the other potential candidates so far the oldest is thirteen – no, Carinn's fourteen, but too scatty for me to remember that. Nice kid, memory left _Between_ somewhere" T'lana grinned.

Jeinne grinned back.

"I know EXACTLY what you mean!" she said "My little sister Linnara is like that; she'd be about the same age too."

"Hmm" said T'lana "Perhaps we ought to be taking her on Search in case Irgel thinks her a suitable substitute."

Jeinne stared in horror.

"Surely not – but she's just a kid!"

"We've had children of thirteen come to the Weyr escaping unwelcome marriage" said T'lana "And Queenrider L'exa was married off at twelve."

Jeinne and Neminda both looked horrified.

"We'll do anything we need to, to help the Weyr prevent things like that!" said Jeinne; Neminda nodded vigorously.

"You'll do" nodded T'lana "You'll do VERY well!"

"Our Linnara sometimes twitches something awful" said Jeinne "She's always had a tendency to slip into a dream world of her own; but when Jendar – our father – takes his belt to her for it, she's started twitching and throwing herself about so he whips her more for making a fool of him."

"Has the fardling dimglow forkjuice-brain neverhears of fits?" cried T'lana indignantly "IDIOT! Numbwit! Wherry brain! The sooner we get that poor child to safety the better!"

Jeinne was very impressed by T'lana's fury on behalf of a child she had never met.

If that was what being a dragonrider was about, she wanted to be one too!


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

T'lana sent M'kel on pretext of Search for Linnara; M'kel was short on tact but long on good common sense. Besides, T'lana liked Vorth. He HAD collected her on Search after all.

And M'kel sometimes had insights and senses.

M'kel discovered Holder Jendar hitting his daughter, who appeared to be having some kind of seizure.

"That girl is fitting" said M'kel coldly "If you want to kill her, don't you think that a crossbow bolt would be kinder?"

"What?" Jendar turned and stared while the girl twitched. "She's only doing it to annoy! She always does it when she's in trouble!"

His wife was crying.

"I'm taking her on Search and right now; and via the Healer Hall" said M'kel coldly "I consider such stupidity deserves having your teeth rammed down your throat but I've not time if I hope to save that kid's life. I'll be back later, porcine!" he was gathering the twitching girl to him as he spoke, sweeping her out to Vorth, throwing the last comment over his shoulder.

oOoOo

Master Oldive made the girl Linnara comfortable as M'kel explained.

"I imagine she has always had what appeared to be lapses in concentration" The Masterhealer said to M'kel "That may have been taken by a stupid man as insolent disregard. Beatings will exacerbate the condition.

"Will it improve if she's kept calm?" asked M'kel. "If she fits and will also do so I can't really justify coming for her on Search; she'd never Impress.

"But you at High Reaches cede the widest interpretation of the Charter in permitting her Right to ask" said Master Oldive dryly "And if she decides to stay on, well you will doubtless ascertain when she is of the age of Choice and get T'rin or one of your other Harpers to obfuscate until then."

M'kel grinned.

"You know us very well, Master" he said.

oOoOo

Jendar complained to T'bor of course; but M'kel, for all his faults and apparent slapdash manner, was actually very careful and asked Vorth to bespeak Orth to explain to the Weyrleader. He also kept T'bor up to date on the Masterhealer's verdict.

T'bor received Jendar coldly and listened to his complaint.

"Finished?" he said as the Holder spluttered to a halt. "Good. Now it's MY turn. You castigate MY Rider for carrying out his Oath – to protect and serve. Masterhealer Oldive considers you an unmitigated idiot. The girl is something he calls an epileptic; she has fits. They can start by staring into the middle distance – YOU caused them to become falling fits by YOUR violence. The girl is coming to the Weyr for her own safety."

"She can't! she's to be married at Turnover!" declared Jendar.

"Ah, yes, a hurried substitute for her sister. I know about that. Her husband isn't going to thank you for a bride whose throes of shock on his wedding night might easily snap his tackle right off with the violence of her contracting muscles" said T'bor extemporising hastily.

"You mean she's a defective?" Jendar stared.

T'bor regarded him coolly.

"She has a sickness that can be exacerbated by stress. If she is – defective – you have caused it. You are the defective one. Now get out of my sight before I report you to Lord Deckter for cruelty to children."

"Well if she's defective you're welcome to her. I want my oldest back though" said Jendar.

"She doesn't want to go" said T'bor "And she's over the age of choice; it is her Right to decide to ask to be taken in to the Weyr. You cannot make her return. And she'll never be acceptable to that little twerp at Reedmere anyway; she and her lover have weyred together already" he added not entirely menaciously.

Jeinne and Neminda had moved into a ground floor weyr; and Jeinne had cut her hair very short in the close crop most male Riders favoured. In trews with her mannish walk she could pass as a boy; and to give her her due, she mucked in with the other youths without any fanciness at all!

Jendar stormed off.

T'bor knew which of them Deckter would believe and back if the man went to complain; and moreover he would tell Deckter the truth. He could scarcely help it after all if the man knew so little about his elder daughter that he assumed her lover to be male and a Rider.

oOoOo

Jeinne was delighted to have her little sister in the Weyr with her once the child was considered well enough to travel there.

T'lana explained gently that the fits meant that it was unlikely that Linnara would ever Impress. The little girl pulled a face.

"I may try though?"

"You may. Even the best Healers don't understand how the brain works; it may be that the telepathic communications will stop you fitting. I don't know. we'll get you a firelizard egg as soon as possible, bronze or queen, and see if that helps" said T'lana kindly.

"WOW!" Linnara was overjoyed!

In the meantime she moved in with the other candidates and she an Carinn made pact to find things for each other.

Mallitta laughed.

"You mean I'll find things for both of you" she said cheerfully.

oOoOo

T'bor had been busy; he had barely returned from the hatching at Ista when the fellow Jendar had confronted him, and was suffering some consternation from the events there.

A weyrling had broken the shell of a tiny egg; and had been promptly rejected by the minute Queen inside it. The little creature had selected Petrilla, taken to see the hatching by T'rin, and still in the hatching cavern. T'bor firmly dubbed her P'rilla to a horrified G'dened: who to his credit had accepted what had happened and would have taken her into his Weyr. P'rilla had other ideas; she still had fosterlings to care for at the Holdless cavern of Igen, and a dragonless man she cared for. It was arranged that she would come to High Reaches presently; little Delyth really was scarcely bigger than a firelizard and it might be doubtful that she would ever be large enough to be ridden if she lived. T'bor honoured P'rilla for accepting Impression, going to the piteous little Queen, for it was plain that the Holdless woman was well aware that her chances of survival might be low. But dragons MUST be Impresses; and P'rilla had been ready to do the right thing when it would have been easier to have ignored the call and force Delyth to take herself _Between_ unwanted.

T'rin had said that several of her fosterlings were also good material for Impression; as a Blue Rider he had good instincts for that. Trust Petrilla – P'rilla! – to find those with the extra spark to take under her wing. The Weyr then would be the best place for them, if dragonless Felerel could cope. The one-time Bronze Rider seemed a strong-willed man; and T'rin had promised that he would ask all the other dragons to be with him, to fill some of the void, the way Brekke survived by hearing all dragons naturally.

If it worked – and it certainly seemed to help Corbin, dragonless husband of Rillys of Rivenhill, to have Camnath chat to him – it was something to suggest to other Weyrleaders to help anyone who lost their dragon rather than the half guilty at being spared tendency for Riders to pull away, encouraging their dragons to do so in respect for the grief of the Bereaved. Which may have been the worst thing to do; compassion and the debt owed to such demanded that the attempt be made.

Jendar had come at perhaps a worse time than usual for his plaint with T'bor immersed in compassion for the dragonless and even less likely than usual to take wherryshit from someone he rapidly realised he despised!

T'bor was, therefore, prepared to be well disposed towards Jendar's daughters, and the lover of the oldest.

And if she Impressed a Blue, or even a Brown, well then, why not?

oOoOo

Events were moving very fast.

The Printercraft Hall was quickly erected – if not perhaps finished internally in all its rooms – was ready to start accepting apprentices.

The Weyr hosted the Mastercrafters of every Craft, quite a lot of Lords Holders and a significant number of Weyrleaders, even F'lar and Lessa tearing themselves away from their excavations for a day. R'mart and Bedella did not attend. Nor did D'ram; but D'ram had more on his mind than a new Craft, in licking Southern Weyr into shape. And HE sent apologies.

The ceremony to open the crafthall was brief and simple.

The Weyr approved of that.

The main business of ceremonial was the culmination of it in a feast; at least such was the opinion of most, especially apprentices and weyrlings. Midwinter feasts might be more frugal in the High Reaches than at other times of turn, but the kitchen staff still did them proud, padding out scarce meat with delicious dishes from dried and salted legumes and fungi, onions and plenty of tasty spices. And of course there was plenty of good salt fish from the Tillek tribute.

The new apprentices to be were impressed too. Word went around that the crafthall was to share its kitchens with the Weyr for convenience; and the thought of eating so well as a general thing was enough to cheer any adolescent youth!

The rumour was only true in part.

Keerana had promised to be in charge of feeding the crafters whle the final touches were being put to their Hall; but then they would be on their own.

One of her many nieces HAD however volunteered to be Headwoman of the crafthall; and H'llon had accepted with delight! Keereesa was almost as good a manager and cook as her aunt, since Keerana trained her relatives with ruthless efficiency.

In all the excitement, J'nara's production of twins passed almost unnoticed to any but the proud parents and their closest friends. T'lana slipped away from the feasting to officiate, instructing B'lova to watch and learn and stop getting in the way, while R'gar took M'gol for a long walk until he was clam enough to be fit to allow near his weyrmate.

The twins were names Jenor and Marthara to celebrate both their parents.

oOoOo

As Segrith's clutching drew nearer, Green Rider L'wenne wrestled with herself; and decided to tackle the unpleasant Larrina.

She decided to be straightforward and went straight up to the older girl.

"Look, candidate Larrina, I'm seabred myself; and I was brought up to believe that those who had disabilities were useless. My brother was born with a humped back and my father killed him."

Larrina shrugged.

"Nothing else to be done, is there?" she said.

L'wenne pursed her lips.

"If that attitude had been taken over a baby called Oldive we should not now have an excellent Master Healer who has personally saved the lives of many dragonriders, inclucing a Blooded Queenrider. He has also been able to substantially aid those otherwise unlikely to be able to do much and to help them lead as full lives as possible. I give you an example: a boy blinded by his uncle's carelessness with a flamethrower. The boy learned first to carve by touch; Master Oldive restored his sight by cutting away scar tissue. That boy has since become a Journeyman and is now our Weyrwoodcrafter. They don't hand out Journeyman's knots on pity. He's good. And his family had murmured that it would have been batter if he had died in the accident."

Larrina shrugged.

"All very interesting, I'm sure, Green Rider. What was it that it had to do with me? Are you making some kind of secondhand sexual proposal for the Woodcrafter?"

L'wenne stared.

"Is sex all you fardling candidates ever think about?" she said. "I was trying to point out that your attitudes to the disabled are wrong, and to explain that the concept that all disabilities make a person useless is an incorrect one."

"Oh? But Green Rider, why should I care? I have NO intention of doing anything so demeaning as becoming a healer. If the Weyr wants to throw away resources on cranks and cripples, it's the Weyr's business; until they fail to cover Fall because of it and then it's the Lords Holders' business to make a just complaint. I really just could not care, so long as I'M not expected to have anything to do with it."

Larrina did not quite have the temerity to yawn rudely but L'wenne had the feeling she came close.

"I see" said the Green Rider grimly. "I had thought that, being seabred, you might have been brought up with the same twisted principles I was on account of the shortness of resources. My apologies to your people; you're just a selfish little caprine all on your own without any concept of what it takes to be a dragonrider. Good day to you" and she turned to go.

"Such a child still" murmured Larrina, amused.

L'wenne was NOT amused; and kept on going before she did something she might regret.

She went to sound off to her friend I'dra; and the girls calmed down by spending an hour playing with L'wenne's humped-back nephew Lasiad, named in part for I'dra, who as Iadra had supported the other girl in taking the baby from a father who had intended killing him.

"The comfort is, dear one" said I'dra, who had picked up that appellation from T'lana "That she's too selfish even to Impress. Segrith will clutch soon; it won't be long before one of the others rises; then she'll have had her three and be out."

"Don't the one at Benden count?" asked L'wenne wistfully, Larrina having been an unsuccessful candidate for the controversial Gold egg.

I'dra pulled a face.

"Y'know, I think it'd be a bad precedent if it did? I mean, High Reaches is all about new starts for people."

L'wenne nodded.

"You're right of course" she grimaced "It's a bad habit you have, dear."

"Of course, our G'sina was selfish at first" murmured I'dra, referring to another clutchmate.

"But she was basically decent; had a good upbringing, just some unfortunate so-called friends. Her selfishness was only skin deep" said L'wenne. "Like me; fighting against common decency because to accept High Reaches ways I had to accept that my kin were wrong."

I'dra gave her a hug.

"It's right to try to be loyal to kin" she said "But sometimes you have to accept that they're not always right. It's all they know; it was all YOU knew."

"But I learned. And – and HIS idea of Healers being butchers….." tears filled her eyes at the thought that the Healer Hall might have saved her sister's life during birthing if only she had been taken there in time, resenting her brother-in-law's attitude that birthing was only what women did and if they died of it they were weak.

"No point crying on regurgitated ash" said I'dra, kindly. "It'll only make you bitter and will upset Asheth."

"True" L'wenne nodded, putting her bitterness firmly aside. "I just wish we could change things; that was why I had to talk to her."

"It may take a while but it will get about" said I'dra. "And SOME people will remember and decide they want a better chance of life than Lasora."

L'wenne brightened.

"That I can hope for" she said.

oOoOo

To the other less than pleasant left over candidate, Nensa, help had already been offered and she had spurned it most rudely and unpleasantly. Indeed Nensa went out of her way to make spiteful comments about the female homosexuals, delighting in taunting Jeinne and Neminda.

"You have a serious problem, you know, sister" said Jeinne.

"I'm not your sister and I wouldn't want to be the sister of a pervert" said Nensa.

Jeinne laughed.

"The pervert is the one who has the twisted outlook to sex. Reckon you've a twisted outlook to all life; go chew yourself and swallow!"

Jeinne did however take herself to see T'lana to ask for counsel.

"What's wrong with that Nensa?" she asked bluntly "She's quite upset Mindy."

T'lana frowned.

"That's not acceptable. I'll talk to her. We thought by some of her attitudes she might be homosexual; C'linna asked Shuba to have a talk to her about it and offer advice but she took a violent hatred to Shuba over the whole idea, which suggests she's fighting her own feelings. None so set against girlboy Green Rides as a Blue Rider who either blows both ways or is denying his own homosexuality. Fact of life, I'm afraid. And she the loser."

"Huh, well, if it's all HER problem we can ignore it" said Jeinne, shrugging. "I wondered if she but expressed a hidden opinion and I preferred to know."

"Nope" said T'lana "She's just full of crackdust."

oOoOo

The little Queenrider found out just HOW full of crackdust Nensa was when approaching the girl to give her a private reprimand found her shouting at Linnara that her sister was a pervert and doubtless she too would be a sexual aberration. Linnara, standing up for her sister, was starting to fit.

T'lana got the little girl laid on a bunk, padded well with furs, a leather strap in her mouth as Master Oldive had recommended; then turned round, seized Nensa by the tunic and proceeded to administer a good spanking with the girl's own slipper.

"You are OUT" she said coldly "Pack your things; you leave in an hour."

Some people just could not be helped.

Not that T'lana did not sigh over Nensa. Had she not gone out of her way to hurt a child, the Weyr might yet have been able to help her; but what she had done to Linnara was unforgiveable.

As to Larrina, their other troublesome candidate, T'lana left the last word to I'linne, who followed up L'rilly's own comments to say,

"The milk of human unkindness trickles in a turgid and cacaceous effluvium from her bosom."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

The time came that Segrith took herself to the Hatching Cavern and produced, rather apologetically, a clutch of seventeen eggs.

"Sure, and such lovely eggs as they are, Segrith me pretty" said D're, come to reassure the Oldtimer Queen. "You always produce some quality clutches, never you be minding av the numbers, when yer well up on the higher colours f'sure."

Segrith allowed herself to be flattered by D're – a Senior Queen always had a special relationship with the Bronzes and their Riders – and was smug enough armed with that information to please Pilgra.

"What are they?" asked the bouncy blond Queenrider.

"Sure, and doesn't Segrith almost always lay a high number of Bornzes?" said D're "It's two here and four Browns, five Blues and just the six Greens."

"Could disappoint a few girls" said Pilgra.

D're shrugged.

"The dragonets will choose as they will" he said. "They have high choice; I'm thinking it's good."

oOoOo

Boys left from the previous clutches would be standing again; and with a small clutch it was decreed that, apart from weyrbred or new weyr members or those related to weyrfolk, no Search would be made. This would include the weyrbred brothers Garald and Garvan, Harper apprentices, and Garvan was now in age, as was Artist apprentice Boral, and R'mina's second brother Ravis. Apprentice Artist Sessel was one who would be standing again, as would apprentice artist Gweta; which meant, as Geriana pointed out, four artists standing with the girl Vellara hoping for a Green.

"Trying to rival the Harpers and Woodcrafters" grinned T'rin.

"Oh we won't manage that – you've two standing and Telfer will of course, and Ipominea and Tahnee are in age" said Geriana cheerfully.

T'lana had instructed Telfer formally that she expected him to stand; and now assured, in his Journeyman's status, the young man was ready to agree!

Of those new residents of the Weyr, the one-time caprine herder Fidonas would stand, his limp mostly gone with Calla's careful re-breaking and setting of the leg that had healed so badly; and so too would Chorlo and Piaz, P'rilla's fosterlings. Their oldest sister was too young; and must wait a while!

Chorlo and Piaz promptly teamed up with Fidonas and Roberthel, a lad who had failed to Impress in the previous clutch. Roberthel had joined the Mountain Rescue team in the meanwhile and had proved himself brave and resourceful. He had already befriended Fidona, and had drawn the diffident boy out of his shell; and had suggested that his new friend should also join Mountain Rescue. Fidonas was keen, he wanted to help others as he would have wished to have been help if only his father had sent word; he had however been half afraid to put himself forward. The responsibilities brought him on no end and there were sage nods that this confidence was what he needed to add to a natural potential of power to make him Rider material, for he did not lack courage at all.

Chorlo had had his problems that he had needed to overcome; and the four youths complemented each other very well. It was however Chorlo who noticed something amiss and spoke bluntly to Rorik.

"You're not happy, are you Rorik?" he said shrewdly.

"Who says?" the other boy scowled.

"Your whole attitude says. You like to poke your nose in, but yet you don't join the logicators as any normal nosy person might. Are you afraid they might find out something about you that you're afraid of finding out about yourself? They say you were a sneak. I used to bully kids for the man who owned us because it saved me knocks; and he had me well trained, had me from an early age. I was a pretty babe you see; and all pretty babes beg better if they're crying and they cry better if they are in pain" and Chorlo lifted his tunic. "These are the pins that just grew in" he said.

Rorik stared in horror; and Chorlo took that as a victory, to elicit a reaction.

"What sort of monster….." the weaver lad could not finish the sentence.

"One H'llon broke the neck of" grinned Chorlo. "The monster did the same to our Silse; but he may even come to forget it. P'rill was able to get all the pins out of him. I wanted to prove that I know what bullied is – and you strike me as having the manner of one who is bullied."

"I – not entirely" said Rorik "Certainly not like that! But I never was accepted by the other boys, so I got my own back by sneaking."

"Why weren't you accepted? Because your father's a master?" asked Chorlo bluntly.

"That… I…." Rorik looked angered.

"Look, if you don't want to talk to me, why not talk to R'gar? He's pretty kind you know – I've heard some stories of how he can drop gruff if any of his boys needs kindness!" said Chorlo.

"I – how do you know if you're homosexual?" blurted out Rorik.

Chorlo blinked, and considered.

"I dunno" he said "I guess if men look more attractive in that way to you than women. I mean, if you'd rather kiss T'rin than L'rilly that's a good indication I guess; though I don't think T'rin blows that way, I think he keeps strings of women."

"He's a Harper" said Rorik "Goes with the territory."

"Well….. that's the only suggestion I can make" said Chorlo. "I guess you could talk to a homosexual Rider? One who isn't aggressive about it, like one of Geriana's boys? The brothers like girls too, so they have more experience than anyone else I guess! Me, I like women, though I'd not want to try to approach any of the gorgeous pieces here for fear of a serious rebuff and boxed ears."

"I don't really notice women, well except by whether they're doing their jobs properly" said Rorik. "But then, I've not much noticed any men either, not to….well….."

"Maybe you're lucky and blow both ways like S'net and S'negen" said Chorlo "Look, the way I see it is that HERE there's no such thing as being different – everyone is expected to be an individual and that includes how you like your sex. For those people who are getting it. I really like that idea. Don't you?"

"I get jumped on a lot for doing what I thought was right" said Rorik resentfully.

"Yeah, I'd already sussed that your father's a bully even though you try and protect him" said Chorlo "And with his free spy. You need to find out who Rorik is, like I had to find Chorlo, without letting the sons of the Red Star who've been controlling us having any say. I bet the real Rorik is a nicer person than his father tried to make him, after all look what pains you're taking over Tanaish!"

"Enlightened self interest – you should have smelled him when he first arrived!" groaned Rorik "I do feel sorry for him – he's amiable enough – but not as sorry as he made me feel for myself sleeping next to him. We had to teach him to use the rag-on-a-stick."

"Had to learn that myself" said Chorlo "Always used leaves or hoped it wouldn't stick. Not that many amenities in my life before P'rilla took me on."

"Yes, well, that's not your fault" said Rorik "Tanaish is cotholdbred – and if the rest of his family are as bad as him it must whiff in there closed up for the winter! It – it's been nice having approval from the others for taking care of him."

Chorlo shuddered. He had heard some stories of the unfortunate Tanaish.

"Well – you can start again, huh? Accept you've done the wrong things because you didn't know better, because there's no reason people shouldn't look at you anew if you were moving on from that. Specially us newcomers."

Rorik nodded.

"Thanks. I'm – I'm glad you came to talk to me; you made me look at WHY I am unhappy – because you're right, I am. Maybe…..maybe I can start to become happier."

"Just love the dragons; I learned to. I'm not scared of them any more, now I know they're people too. I guess if you didn't want to talk to a human person, you could always talk to a dragon. Like Renpeth; he's pretty chatty, and as discreet as a Harper too."

Rorik stared.

"Maybe I'll do that" he said.

Rorik was still something of a busybody, but at least he started trying to help instead of just reporting infractions.

oOoOo

None of H'llon's senior printcrafters were to stand for Impression this time; save Ipominea who was well enough ahead in the craft not to need to worry about taking time out should she be successful. The rest, the Printmaster had decreed, must wait for the next clutch and only the confirmed apprentices eligible unless there be a youth from new intake demanded on Search by the sensitive Blue and Green Riders. Tying the craft to the Weyr meant that there would be less Crafthall antipathy to the Impressed members giving their time to fighting Thread and would too show why it was imperative for the craft to fight ignorance through the dissemination of knowledge.

Tahnee, as a Journeyman, was to stand for Impression, though Saralsi had turned the opportunity down though he was still just within age. He was loath to give any time to a dragon when he could give more to his new craft. Tahnee felt the same way, but she had been reared over the last few years with Weyr attitudes to consider that it was also her duty to give the dragons as wide a choice as possible.

The printer girls meanwhile took young Linnara under their wings; with the result that she too was to become a printcraft apprentice with the new intake, Weyrfolk always having preference with weyr crafters. Jeinne and Tahnee struck up a tentative friendship too, the latter explaining her bad experiences under Sandrina and the prejudices she felt as a result. Tahnee was far too level headed to permit prejudices to seriously influence her however; and hoped that this friendship would cure her of them! Jeinne was glad that the younger girl was honest about her feelings and her reasons too, rather than hiding them. In her opinion getting things into the open was always a good idea!

oOoOo

Before the excitement of hatching came excitement – and not a little concern – for those who had Impressed Green dragons from Daenilth's clutch a turn before.

K'iara was happy in her relationship with H'gey of course, and Brieth was more than likely to fly Idrith. I'la was with Brown Rider D'rel and S'eta had formed a relationship with Sh'rit: but Sh'rit's little Bronze was still too young, so S'eta requested sequestration. Two other girls had boyfriends: T'asha had gravitated towards T'han, who plainly adored her, and M'eela was 'walking out' as she put it with I'la's brother B'rint. As both girls were still young, however, and both admitted under blunt questioning to have gone no further than petting, T'lana decreed that they would be semi-sequestered in being tied into a sack with seacraft knots, that would enable them to share the experience with their lovers but without penetration. Most of the male Green Riders of the clutch were to be sequestered too, save C'irt, a diffident lad of eighteen turns who hoped that a mating flight would enable him to end up with a Blue Rider he admired but had been too shy to approach – and who had not approached him for fear of placing undue pressure on a younger lad. As C'irt's little Green flirted outrageously with the Blue, there was a good chance this strategy would prove successful!

Amongst the unattached older girls, A'da and M'iandra elected to accept their dragon's choice and see if that led anywhere subsequently. M'iandra finally had a good enough self image to accept that this was a long way away from her attention-seeking promiscuity of her unhappy teen years.

F'anni preferred to sequester and wait; normally a rather impatient girl, she found herself shy and desirous of having love grow from friendship rather than hoping that love and friendship would grow out of shared dragonlust. J'la also requested sequestration, as did Sh'elle; and M'yana was given no choice in the matter on account of her tender years!

K'iara's main concerns meanwhile over Idrith's rising were her lover's health.

"Is your back up to it?" she asked earnestly. H'gey walked now without sticks but his back ached if he had done too much standing, and R'gar still kept his fiercely kind eye on him, especially when the Harper had been carrying firestone sacks to the fighting Riders.

H'gey grinned.

"I'd not miss it, if it lays me up for a couple of sevendays" he said firmly. "There's no danger to my back; the worst that can happen is pain. And shells knows, I'm well enough acquainted with that not to worry about it."

"If it hurts after will you tell me?" demanded his weyrmate.

He nodded.

"I'm not a complete idiot, love, even though I'm a fool for you; I don't want to risk damaging myself by moving awkwardly."

K'iara nodded, satisfied.

oOoOo

It was probably through being a couple that meant that it was Idrith who was the first to be ready to rise on her first mating flight; and K'iara was warned of its imminence when she almost snapped at young Lyseder for making her jump through having fitted up a Minercraft noisecracker to go off by the beating of the practice drum. Well aware of the expectation of irritation beforehand however, K'iara was expecting this and bit of sharp reply to use the method taught by sweet-natured B'kas to all the High Reaches Weyr Green Riders, of saying a soothing verse to herself and thinking of some of her favourite things. B'kas had managed to help a lot of the more volatile Green Riders thus, and if the Weyr in general were pleased by the results of less snippy Riders with proddy mounts, the Green Riders themselves were grateful to avoid the usual snide comments their pre-mating snippiness generally earned from some Riders of other colours.

Which being so, Lyseder received a rather brittle smile and the sentence to spend his free time for the next sevenday as drudge to the Weyrtanner to understand the value of skin and the folly of risking its integrity. It would be hard and odorous work; and Lyseder would have far preferred a good walloping with the Journeyman's slipper but he acknowledged gloomily that it was fair enough. He had been at a loose end with his friends Garald and Garvan standing for Impression and spending most of their time with the other candidates and at lessons in dragon care. Lyseder himself now had even less free time than the brothers.

K'iara went as soon as she might to observe Idrith and saw the little dragon practically glowing with the sheen that denoted imminent mating. It was time to warn H'gey; Idrith might rise any time in the next couple of days.

When it came, K'iara was transported! Their love overlaid with the intensity of their dragon's lusts was a marvellous, wonderful thing and as Brieth caught Idrith and turned her for home, K'iara went gladly with H'gey in a passion beyond words!

She had however been very careful to keep up with the taking of contraceptive herbs; she loved their baby daughter Geyara deeply, but had no intention of falling pregnant again so soon if she could help it, for the good of her own health.

oOoOo

Other Greens were swift to follow Idrith in rising; A'da ended up with T'gar and M'iandra with C'nar which as M'iandra said later when they compared notes was just like a pair of Harpers. C'nar grinned and asked if any Harper could resist one of the most elegant and sophisticated weyrwomen around. The box M'iandra gave his ears was somewhat half-hearted. Cnar at fifteen turns never expected any serious relationship; and the girls rolled their eyes and sighed over the iniquities of Harpers. T'gar and C'nar just laughed!

The shock of the batch was that T'han managed, during the throes of dragonlust, to divest T'asha of her sack.

"That boy is too resourceful by far" said T'lana, firmly dosing the girl with contraceptive herbs.

T'asha grinned, blushing.

"He's the best" she said.

T'lana could hardly read the girl a lecture; she had decided on her own weyrmate hardly any older, and gave her instead a frank and pithy catalogue of advice, mostly involving the use of herbs.

C'irt had succeeded in winning the lover he hoped for and went around grinning inanely for several days; and the older girls who had sequestered had awoken alone, faintly frustrated and determined to find lovers before their dragons rose again – even Sh'elle!

oOoOo

Segrith's eggs were hardening well and due to hatch within days when Sagarra received a message from Rivenhill Hold and announced, in her own idiom, that Rillys had Hatched a Green called Rilbinna.

The drums announced the birth of Lady Rillys' third daughter shortly thereafter.

oOoOo

Hatching began auspiciously with the simultaneous hatching of the two Bronze dragonets; who found their way into the arms of young Roberthal and Piaz, now R'thal and P'az. Chorlo hardly had time to be proud of his foster brother before he found himself gazing into the loving raibow regard of a very well grown young Brown!

The artists were cheering themselves almost sick: Sessel and Gwetar both Impressed Blue dragons and Vellara one of the few Greens. S'sel, G'tar and V'lara were walking on air! Nobody was as surprised as Telfer when Brown Vith's loving gaze made him T'fer, with little brown Softy chirping encouragement, and the young Weyrwoodcrafter murmuring something about the two browns being a delightful contrast, for Softy was a soft light brown and Vith was so dark as to appear quite black in the shadows! T'fer was distracted only by Vith's hunger from contemplating how to use this in a complex inlay of dragons in tessellation in a segue from light to dark.

T'lana meanwhile was jumping up and down and shouting in sheer triumph over being vindicated when Jeinne became J'inne with Blue Uluth, the first ever known female Blue Rider; and Neminda Impressed Gree Luhith.

Few enough of the spectators realised that J'inne was a girl; which was perhaps just as well. With her slender boyish figure and cropped hair she looked every inch a young man. And no-one was more delighted than her sister Linnara!

C'rinn was sobbing with joy to be successful on her third attempt; Mallitta was left again, rather mournful, to be cuddled by her brothers B'mall and B'ron and her sister-in-law V'lie. That Lekelle became L'kelle was no surprise at all; nor that Larrina failed to Impress again. Tahnee was as relieved as she was disappointed – and she acknowledged that she WAS a little disappointed – not to Impress; but there needed to be one decent house mother to the printcraft babes. Glenlys, the oldest female printcrafter, was a nice enough girl, but not, Tahnee thought, used to little ones!

Teesha too was left; and she too had her craft warring with her desire to Impress. Well, she was allowed another time; and shee would see.

As for Ipominea, clinging delightedly to little Beth, H'llon whooped with delight for his fosterling.

"Which of your too many syllables shall we use in contraction?" he chuckled.

"Use Po to start with" said the girl gravely "It IS my nickname."

"Po'nea" said R'gar firmly coming over. "H'llon, get up into the tiers; there's trouble."

And the trouble was from an angry Weaving Master.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Rorik had been much easier with himself since talking with Chorlo; and had been able to acknowledge his own differences and why he had felt such an outsider with the other apprentices.

Consequently he was a happier boy; and his cup ran over when little Green Dilbeth crooned her way into his arms and made him, against all his hopes, R'rik.

H'llon reached the boy's father as the man's protests reached a crescendo that THAT creature would warp his boy into One of Them and that he demanded IT be put down and the boy returned to him.

H'llon loomed at him; he had learned how to use his bulk as well as his authority. He presented the view of his Mastercrafter's knots so the Master could not avoid seeing them.

Young, H'llon might be; but the overall Master of a craft outranked any other Master regardless of whether Master Varik chose to ignore the authority of a Bronze Rider Wingleader.

"Stop making a fool of yourself and your craft" snapped H'llon "And if you dare to threaten a dragon again you'll be walking home forthwith!"

Varik pulled himself together at the threatening aspect of the giant young Bronze Rider; H'llon was furious at such comments and did not trouble to hide it!.

Varik was furious too; he took the idea of his son being Impressed by a female dragon as a personal insult! He glowered.

"I want to go to my son" he said sullenly.

"Then give me your belt knife" said H'llon.

"What?"

"Give me your belt knife. You have threatened dragonkind in the presence of a Bronze Rider as witness; I don't trust you not to try to carry out your threat. It will be returned when you are back at your home" H'llon rumbled.

Varik flushed.

"Foolishness! You are quick to take up hot words – well if you must have it….." he fumbled with the knife as H'llon held out his hand silently.

oOoOo

H'llon escorted the angry Weaver to the Bowl, where R'rik was feeding Dilbeth, The boy grinned all over his face, still in the throes of the joy of Impression; and the smile slipped as he saw his father's furious face to be replaced by an expression of wary incomprehension.

"Father! See, I did Impress at last, isn't she beautiful?" he said, hoping to appease the man with his own success.

"Beautiful? No! it's an abomination! It'll twist you to become a girl-boy!" Varik almost spat.

Rorik blinked.

"But father, I was already gay!" he said "I only realised it recently, but it's worked out perfectly…." He tailed off and mover protectively in front of Dilbeth as his father raised a hand.

H'llon, for all his size, was fast; and he caught the man's wrist before the vicious blow could land, bearing the arm inexorably - and it has to be said, painfully – down.

"Striking a dragonman can mean exile to the Eastern Isles" the Bronze Rider growled.

"But he's my son! I have every right…."

"You have NO rights over a dragonman!" said H'llon sharply. "He is Weyrfolk; and worthy of honour. TRY to behave with the honour your knots as Master demand."

"Then he is no son of mine; I never want to see the filthy little turd again!" spat Varik.

"Such is your choice" said H'llon. "We wouldn't want you here anyway unless you could learn to behave like a civilised Human Being. Green Rider!" he called to a youngster with a Green dragon assisting passengers to their rides "Master Varik is leaving for High Reaches Hold; give him his knife back after you land there only."

"I'll sit with no girl-boy!" Varik spat.

"I'm a girl" said L'nna shortly "Can't you tell the difference Master? Or do you blow both ways that you cannot tell a boy from a girl?"

Varik almost raised his hand and fought with himself to resist the urge.

"Wise move" H'llon rumbled. "L'nna, that was pert. He is a Mastercrafter; apologise."

"I apologise for the manner of making the remark" said L'nna "But unless he's going to apologise for not being able to tell girls and boys apart I shan't go any further, sorry Bronze Rider. You can ride in front of me Master: I'd like to keep an eye on a man who is not to be trusted with his own knife."

oOoOo

H'llon worried until L'nna returned; she looked rueful.

"I'd better report to T'bor" she said. "The Weaver tried to take the knife back before I landed, grappled with me. I wasn't about to take any chances with my life or Polleth's so I took him by the scruff and dropped him off. I dropped the knife down to him too; but unfortunately it was too tightly sheathed to come out and spear him" she added regretfully.

"How high were you?" asked H'llon.

"Oh, only a length or so….. won't be worse than a few broken bones unless he landed on his head when there'd be no damage at all."

"L'nna!" H'llon had to work not to laugh.

"Sorry, H'llon. Sorry to piss of YOU not for disrespecting HIM" she amended.

H'llon gave up.

The whole family were just as outspoken and if K'len had never been broken of it, it was doubtful that his sisters would be either.

oOoOo

T'bor heard the report; and shrugged.

"L'nna, you had no choice" he said "Protecting your dragon and yourself was the first priority and I'll make it clear in a report to Lord Bargen. He takes a dim view of those who manhandle weyrwomen. H'llon, will you go to Master Zurg at the Weavercrafthall? This fellow may lodge a complaint with him, and as a Master yourself I think you should get your retaliation in first."

H'llon nodded.

"I've a matter I wish to discuss with him anyhow" he said.

oOoOo

As a result of this, H'llon returned having made a new friend; and borrowed R'rik as soon as R'gar permitted, to try a new invention that the innovative Bronze Rider had started to evolve!

oOoOo

Naturally, with a crafthall to run as well as his normal duties, H'llon would not be in a position to be Weyrleader of the Island Weyr; it was generally thought that it might be as well for Sh'rilla, who could use the warmth, might be the one to go, T'kil being an eminently suitable Weyrleader. To date, T'bor had been sending off the elderly and infirm to take advantage of the warm climate; their nominal Weyrleader was a grizzled Bronze Rider of Orsheth called S'terel, who had at last admitted that flying Thread on a regular basis was beyond him; and handed in his Wingleader's knots in favour of L'gal. S'terel had stepped down as Flight Leader some turns previously when M'gol had proved himself equal to the task, but had been too stubborn to give up altogether. S'terel had known T'bor's father and had been a supporter of F'lon when Benden was the only Weyr; and it was generally acknowledged that he deserved some surcease!

With the support of the Weyr, the seahold was flourishing under the brothers Peder and Jen; and the warmer climes were helpful to Peder's back too. Unlike H'gey's it would never fully heal, because of not receiving prompt attention; but with H'llon's chair he could sail as well as many an able bodied man.

Others had come, younger sons of fisherfolk, daughters wanting more autonomy in their own lives, other Holdless; and the community thrived. S'terel went sailing with Peder and called him 'Holder' in front of others. It was tacitly agreed that the island should be a place for the infirm Riders for the time being, who had, even so, pledged to fly Thread to help High Reaches Weyr if it were needed, as well as guarding their own small lands, and clutches should be laid there to build up numbers as the normal part of the Present Pass drew to a close, or when Sh'rilla felt a need to retire south, whichever came first. P'rilla was to fly on Daenilth when Sh'rilla was unable, as had already been discussed by the Queenriders; and Sh'rilla hoped to stay with her friends for a few turns yet!

There would be much excavation work to do in the new Weyr; to dig out weyrs and a Hatching cavern and living caverns. But there was no hurry yet.

A name had yet to be chosen for the new Weyr; it was somehow not proper when it was fully established to continue calling it, as so many people did, 'R'cal's Weyr' or just 'The Island Weyr'. When T'lana suggested calling it 'Eastern Reaches Weyr' to suggest too its parent Weyr the name was acclaimed enthusiastically. The seahold was promptly dubbed 'Eastern Reaches Seahold' too. Another blue was suggested for the Weyr colour than the deep indigo of High Reaches; and a shade was chosen a little lighter than Harper Blue, the Hold to combine that with sea green.

And then T'lana came up with another idea.

"We want to build up numbers at Eastern Reaches" she said "And what better way than to have a clutch laid there fairly soon? I know I'm being premature, but how about having Tiabeth's first clutch being there as Z'ira and H'llon aren't going to be Weyrleaders? It'll add to numbers and the young Riders can blood by bringing US firestone if there's not enough work there for them. _Between_ is _Between_. And we can give them experience with us, a few at a time."

"Suppose Tiabeth lays a Queen?" said Pilgra.

"Unlikely as she's based here and we REALLY don't need any" said T'lana "But if she does, I'd say take that as a sign that such is going to be the Eastern Reaches senior queen, and that Sh'rilla isn't going to be likely to be retiring. Or rather, not unless she's ill enough not to be Senior Weyrwoman on top of being a Weyrwoman. Dragons remember the future; leave it to them. They're always right."

T'bor was inclined to agree.

"It seems to work" he admitted. "It's going well there; and a close alliance between Weyr and Hold, even if not quite the 'Weyrhold' that F'lar wants to establish on Southern."

"Oh he's trying to outflank Toric; who would like to be Fax if only he had the same warped genius" snorted T'lana "Instead of only managing the warped bit. As well it is that Fax's only genuine son has half his eye on the ambitious tyle through Sharra! I can quite empathise with m'father trying to cut Toric's strings before he gets fully cocked!"

"When's Tiabeth likely to rise?" T'bor asked.

"A turn or more" said T'lana. "Elith's likely to rise first; Mirrith a little early, though by no means as prematurely nubile as any Green. All the Greens of that clutch have long since risen, and Elith has not, suggesting she really IS like Mirrith; and worth having a clutch or two off her too even though she's smaller than Mirrith."

"She's as large as some of the smaller Oldtimer Queens though" said Pilgra. "Will it make any difference to have Arth fly her?"

"Huh, Canth planned to fly Wirenth" said T'lana. "Brown firelizards fly queens about as often as bronzes do; and I've never noticed that it makes an appreciable difference to the clutch. I reckon if I ran a statistical study it might show trends towards more lower colours but Merry laid bronzes when she rose and was caught by T'fer's Softy. I'm not convinced there'd be a problem. And as you said to me: even if she lays all Greens, well a few extra can't hurt. And some could go to help out at Eastern Reaches when they're grown up.

The Weyrleaders nodded.

The dragons always knew best; and leaving it to them would be the best thing to do!

_That's all for now folks. I am transcribing the next, which is a Harper Hall one but I'll be posting a Krait story from the Harry Potterversenext by general request. Thanks for staying with the High Reaches saga, I haven't run out of stories by a long chalk only fingers in transcribing!_


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